
(lass .._ : 
Book ______ 

Copyright^? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



RMAGEDDON 




AFTER 



W. L.COURTNEY 





ARMAGEDDON— AND AFTER 



ARMAGEDDON-AND 
AFTER 



BY 

W. L. COURTNEY, M.A., LL.D. 



LONDON 

CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd. 
1914 



.Css 






DEC 29 J9/4 



©Ci.Aint.2214 



DEDICATED 

WITH ALL HUMILITY AND ADMIRATION 

TO 

THE YOUNG IDEALISTS OF ALL COUNTRIES 

WHO WILL NOT ALLOW THE DREAMS OF THEIR 

YOUTH TO BE TARNISHED BY THE 

EXPERIENCES OF AN 

OUTWORN AGE 



PREFACE 

I dedicate this little book to the young 
idealists of this and other countries, for 
several reasons. They must, obviously, be 
young, because their older contemporaries, 
with a large amount of experience of earlier 
conditions, will hardly have the courage to 
deal with the novel data. I take it that, 
after the conclusion of the present war, there 
will come an uneasy period of exhaustion and 
anxiety when we shall be told that those who 
hold military power in their hands are alone 
qualified to act as saviours of society. That 
conclusion, as I understand the matter, young 
idealists will strenuously oppose. They will 
be quite aware that all the conservative 
elements will be against them; they will 
appreciate also the eagerness with which a 
large number of people will point out that the 
safest way is to leave matters more or less 
alone, and to allow the situation to be con- 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

trolled by soldiers and diplomatists. Of course 
there is obvious truth in the assertion that the 
immediate settlement of peace conditions must, 
to a large extent, be left in the hands of those 
who brought the war to a successful con- 
clusion. But the relief from pressing anxiety 
when this horrible strife is over, and the feeling 
of gratitude to those who have delivered us 
must not be allowed to gild and consecrate, 
as it were, systems proved effete and policies 
which intelligent men recognise as bankrupt. 
The moment of deliverance will be too unique 
and too splendid to be left in the hands of 
men who have grown, if not cynical, at all 
events a little weary of the notorious defects 
of humanity, and who are, perhaps naturally, 
tempted to allow European progress to fall 
back into the old well-worn ruts. It is the 
young men who must take the matter in hand, 
with their ardent hopes and their keen imagina- 
tion, and only so far as they believe in the 
possibility of a great amelioration will they 
have any chance of doing yeoman service for 
humanity. 

The dawn of a new era must be plenarily 
accepted as a wonderful opportunity for re- 
form. If viewed in any other spirit, the 



PREFACE ix 

splendours of the morning will soon give way 
before the obstinate clouds hanging on the 
horizon. In some fashion or other it must be 
acknowledged that older methods of dealing 
with international affairs have been tried and 
found wanting. It must be admitted that the 
ancient principles helped to bring about the 
tremendous catastrophe in which we are at 
present involved, and that a thorough re- 
organisation is required if the new Europe is 
to start under better auspices. That is why 
I appeal to the younger idealists, because they 
are not likely to be deterred by inveterate 
prejudices; they will be only too eager to 
examine things with a fresh intelligence of 
their own. Somehow or other we must get 
rid of the absurd idea that the nations of 
Europe are always on the look out to do each 
other an injury. We have to establish the 
doctrines of Right on a proper basis, and 
dethrone that ugly phantom of Might, which 
is the object of Potsdam worship. Inter- 
national law must be built up with its proper 
sanctions; and virtues, which are Christian 
and humane, must find their proper place in 
the ordinary dealings of states with one 
another. Much clever dialectics will probably 



x PREFACE 

be employed in order to prove that idealistic 
dreams are vain. Young men will not be 
afraid of such arguments; they will not be 
deterred by purely logical difficulties. Let 
us remember that this war has been waged in 
order to make war for the future impossible. 
If that be the presiding idea of men's minds, 
they will keep their reforming course steadily 
directed towards ideal ends, patiently working 
for the reconstruction of Europe and a better 
lot for humanity at large. 

Once more let me repeat that it is only young 
idealists who are sufficient for these things. 
They may call themselves democrats, or social- 
ists, or futurists, or merely reformers. The 
name is unimportant : the main point is that 
they must thoroughly examine their creed in 
the light of their finest hopes and aspirations. 
They will not be the slaves of any formulae, and 
they will hold out their right hands to every 
man — whatever may be the label he puts on 
his theories— who is striving in single-minded 
devotion for a millennial peace. The new era 
will have to be of a spiritual, ethical type. 
Coarser forms of materialism, whether in 
thought or life, will have to be banished, be- 
cause the scales have at last dropped from our 



PREFACE xi 

eyes, and we intend to regard a human being 

no longer as a thing of luxury, or wealth, or 

greedy passions, but as the possessor of a 

living soul. 

B W. L. C. 

November 10 1 191 Jf. 



I wish to acknowledge my obligation to Mr. H. N. 
Bradford's The War of Steel and Gold (Bell). I do not 
pretend to agree with all that Mr. Brailsford says : but 
I have found his book always interesting, and sometimes 
inspiring. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE ..... 1 

CHAPTER II 

LESSONS OF THE PAST 32 

CHAPTER III 

SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS 63 



xn 



ARMAGEDDON— AND AFTER 
CHAPTER I 

PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE 

The newspapers have lately been making 
large quotations from the poems of Mr. Rud- 
yard Kipling. They might, if they had been 
so minded, have laid under similar contribution 
the Revelation of St. John the Divine. There, 
too, with all the imagery usual in Apocalyptic 
literature, is to be found a description of vague 
and confused fighting, when most of the Kings 
of the earth come together to fight a last and 
desperate battle. The Seven Angels go forth, 
each armed with a vial, the first poisoning the 
earth, the second the sea, the third the rivers 
and fountains of waters, the fourth the sun. 
Then out of the mouth of the dragon, of the 
beast, and of the Antichrist come the lying 
spirits which persuade the Kings of the earth 
to gather all the people for that great day of 
God Almighty " into a place called in the 
Hebrew tongue Armageddon." Translated 



2 ARMAGEDDON 

into our language the account might very well 
serve for the modern assemblage of troops in 
which nearly all the kingdoms of the earth have 
to play their part, with few, and not very 
important, exceptions. It is almost absurd to 
speak of the events of the past three months 
as though they were merely incidents in a great 
and important campaign. There is nothing in 
history like them so far as we are aware. In 
the clash of the two great European organisa- 
tions — the Triple Alliance and the Triple En- 
tente — we have all those wild features of 
universal chaos which the writer of the Apoca- 
lypse saw with prophetic eye as ushering in the 
great day of the Lord, and paving the way for 
a New Heaven and a New Earth. 



A Colossal Upheaval 

It is a colossal upheaval. But what sort of 
New Heaven and New Earth is it likely to 
usher in ? This is a question which it is hardly 
too early to discuss, for it makes a vast differ- 
ence, to us English in especial, if, fighting for 
what we deem to be a just cause, we can look 
forward to an issue in the long run beneficial 
to ourselves and the world. We know the 
character of the desperate conflict which has 
yet to be accomplished before our eyes. Every- 
thing points to a long stern war, which cannot 



-AND AFTER 3 

be completed in a single campaign. Every one 
knows that Lord Kitchener is supposed to have 
prophesied a war of three years, and we can 
hardly ignore the opinion of so good a judge. 
If we ask why, the obvious answer is that every 
nation engaged is not fighting for mere victory 
in battle, nor yet for extension of territory ; but 
for something more important than these. 
They fight for the triumph of their respective 
ideas, and it will make the greatest difference 
to Europe and the world which of the ideas 
is eventually conqueror. Supposing the Ger- 
man invasion of France ends in failure ; that, 
clearly, will not finish the war. Supposing 
even that Berlin is taken by the Russians, 
we cannot affirm that so great an event will 
necessarily complete the campaign. The whole 
of Germany will have to be invaded and sub- 
dued, and that is a process which will take a 
very long time even under the most favourable 
auspices. Or take the opposite hypothesis. 
Let us suppose that the Germans capture Paris, 
and manage by forced marches to defend their 
country against the Muscovite incursion. Even 
so, nothing is accomplished of a lasting char- 
acter. France will go on fighting as she did 
after 1870, and we shall be found at her side. 
Or, assuming the worst hypothesis of all, that 
France lies prostrate under the heel of her 
German conqueror, does any one suppose that 



4 ARMAGEDDON 

Great Britain will desist from fighting ? We 
know perfectly well that, with the aid of our 
Fleet, we shall still be in a position to defy the 
German invader and make use of our enormous 
reserves to wear out even Teutonic obstinacy. 
The great sign and seal of this battle to the 
death is the recent covenant entered into by 
the three members of the Triple Entente. 1 
They have declared in the most formal fashion, 
over the signatures of their three representa- 
tives, Sir Edward Grey, M. Paul Cambon, and 
Count Benckendorff, that they will not make a 
separate peace, that they will continue to act 
in unison, and fight, not as three nations, but 
as one. Perhaps one of the least expected 
results of the present conjuncture is that the 
Triple Entente, which was supposed to possess 
less cohesive efficiency than the rival organisa- 
tion, has proved, on the contrary, the stronger 
of the two. The Triple Alliance is not true 
to its name. Italy, the third and unwilling 
member, still preserves her neutrality, and de- 
clares that her interests are not immediately 
involved. 

Never Again! 

In order to attempt to discover the vast 
changes that are likely to come as a direct 

1 Subsequently joined by Japan. 



—AND AFTER 5 

consequence of the present Armageddon, it is 
necessary to refer in brief retrospect to some 
of the main causes and features of the great 
European war. Meanwhile, I think the general 
feeling amongst all thoughtful men is best 
expressed in the phrase, " Never again." 
Never again must we have to face the possi- 
bility of such a world-wide catastrophe. Never 
again must it be possible for the pursuit of 
merely selfish interests to work such colossal 
havoc. Never again must we have war as the 
only solution of national differences. Never 
again must all the arts of peace be suspended 
while Europe rings to the tramp of armed 
millions. Never again must spiritual, moral, 
artistic culture be submerged under a wave of 
barbarism. Never again must the Ruler of 
this Universe be addressed as the " God of 
battles." Never again shall a new Words- 
worth hail " carnage " as " God's daughter.'' 
The illogicality of it all is too patent. That 
everything which we respect and revere in the 
way of science or thought, or culture, or music, 
or poetry, or drama, should be cast into the 
melting-pot to satisfy dynastic ambition is a 
thing too puerile as well as too appalling to be 
even considered. And the horror of it all 
is something more than our nerves will stand. 
The best brains and intellects of Europe, the 



6 ARMAGEDDON 

brightest and most promising youths, all the 
manhood everywhere in Europe to be shrivelled 
and consumed in a holocaust like this — it is 
such a reign of the Devil and Antichrist on 
earth that it must be banished in perpetuity if 
civilisation and progress are to endure. Never 
again ! 

Unexpected War 

How did we get into such a stupid and appal- 
ling calamity? Let us think for a moment. 
I do not suppose it would be wrong to say that 
no one ever expected war in our days. Take 
up any of the recent books. With the excep- 
tion of the fiery martial pamphlets of Germany, 
the work of a von der Goltz or a Treitschke, or a 
Bernhardi, we shall find a general consensus of 
opinion that war on a large scale was impossible 
because too ruinous, that the very size of the 
European armaments made war impracticable. 
Or else, to take the extreme case of Mr. Norman 
Angell, the entanglements of modern finance 
were said to have put war out of count as an 
absurdity. We were a little too hasty in our 
judgments. It is clear that a single deter- 
mined man, if he is powerful enough, may em- 
broil Europe. However destructive modern 
armaments may be, and however costly a 
campaign may prove, yet there are men who 



-AND AFTER 7 

will face the cost and confront the wholesale 
destruction of life that modern warfare entails. 
How pitiful it is, how strange also, to look back 
upon the solemn asseveration of the Kaiser 
and the Tsar, not so many months ago (Port 
Baltic, July 1912), that the division of Europe 
into the two great confederations known as the 
Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente provided 
a safeguard against hostilities ! We were con- 
stantly assured that diplomats were working 
for a Balance of Power, such an equilibrium 
of rival forces that the total result would 
be stability and peace. Arbitration, too, was 
considered by many as the panacea, to say 
nothing of the Hague Palace of Peace. And 
now we discover that nations may possibly 
refer to arbitration points of small importance 
in their quarrels, but that the greater things 
which are supposed to touch national honour 
and the preservation of national life are tacitly, 
if not formally, exempted from the category 
of arbitrable disputes. Diplomacy, Arbitra- 
tion, Palaces of Peace seem equally useless. 

Proximate and Ultimate Causes 

In attempting to understand how Europe 
has (to use Lord Rosebery's phrase) " rattled 
into barbarism " in the uncompromising fashion 



8 ARMAGEDDON 

which we see before our eyes, we must dis- 
tinguish between recent operative causes and 
those more slowly evolving antecedent con- 
ditions which play a considerable, though not 
necessarily an obvious part in the result. 
Recent operative causes are such things as the 
murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand at 
Serajevo, the consequent Austrian ultimatum 
to Servia, the hasty and intemperate action 
of the Kaiser in forcing war, and — from a more 
general point of view — the particular form of 
militarism prevalent in Germany. Ulterior 
antecedent conditions are to be found in the 
changing history of European States and their 
mutual relations in the last quarter of a century ; 
the ambition of Germany to create an Imperial 
fleet; the ambition of Germany to have "a 
place in the sun " and become a large colonial 
power; the formation of a Triple Entente 
following on the formation of a Triple Alliance ; 
the rivalry between Teuton and Slav ; and the 
mutations of diplomacy and Real-politik. It 
is not always possible to keep the two sets of 
causes, the recent and the ulterior, separate, 
for they naturally tend either to overlap or 
to interpenetrate one another. German Mili- 
tarism, for instance, is only a specific form of 
the general ambition of Germany, and the 
Austrian desire to avenge herself on Servia is 



—AND AFTER 9 

a part of her secular animosity towards Slav- 
dom and its protector, Russia. Nor yet, when 
we are considering the present debacle of civilisa- 
tion, need we interest ourselves overmuch in 
the immediate occasions and circumstances of 
the huge quarrel. We want to know not how 
Europe flared into war, but why. Our object 
is so to understand the present imbroglio as to 
prevent, if we can, the possibility for the future 
of any similar world-wide catastrophe. 

European Dictators 

Let us fix our attention on one or two salient 
points. Europe has often been accustomed to 
watch with anxiety the rise of some potent 
arbiter of her destinies who seems to arrogate 
to himself a large personal dominion. There 
was Philip II. There was Louis XIV. There 
was Napoleon a hundred years ago. Then, 
a mere shadow of his great ancestor, there was 
Napoleon III. Then, after the Franco-German 
war, there was Bismarck. Now it is Kaiser 
Wilhelm II. The emergence of some ambitious 
personality naturally makes Europe suspicious 
and watchful, and leads to the formation of 
leagues and confederations against him. The 
only thing, however, which seems to have any 
power of real resistance to the potential tyrant 



10 ARMAGEDDON 

is not the manoeuvring of diplomats, but the 
steady growth of democracy in Europe, which, 
in virtue of its character and principles, steadily 
objects to the despotism of any given indi- 
vidual, and the arbitrary designs of a personal 
will. We had hoped that the spread of 
democracies in all European nations would 
progressively render dynastic wars an im- 
possibility. The peoples would cry out, we 
hoped, against being butchered to make a 
holiday for any latter-day Csesar. But demo- 
cracy is a slow growth, and exists in very 
varying degrees of strength in different parts 
of our continent. Evidently it has not yet 
discovered its own power. We have sadly to 
recognise that its range of influence and the 
new spirit which it seeks to introduce into the 
world are as yet impotent against the personal 
ascendancy of a monarch and the old concep- 
tions of high politics. European democracy is 
still too vague, too dispersed, too unorganised, 
to prevent the breaking out of a bloody inter- 
national conflict. 



The Personal Factor 

Europe then has still to reckon with the 
personal factor — with all its vagaries and its 
desolating ambitions. Let us see how this has 



-AND AFTER 11 

worked in the case before us. In 1888 the 
present German Emperor ascended the throne. 
Two years afterwards, in March 1890, the 
Pilot was dropped — Bismarck resigned. The 
change was something more than a mere sub- 
stitution of men like Caprivi and Hohenlohe 
for the Iron Chancellor. There was involved 
a radical alteration in policy. The Germany 
which was the ideal of Bismarck's dreams 
was an exceedingly prosperous self-contained 
country, which should flourish mainly because 
it developed its internal industries as well as 
paid attention to its agriculture, and secured 
its somewhat perilous position in the centre of 
Europe by skilful diplomatic means of sowing 
dissension amongst its neighbours. Thus Bis- 
marck discouraged colonial extensions. He 
thought they might weaken Germany. On the 
other hand, he encouraged French colonial 
policy, because he thought it would divert the 
French from their preoccupation with the idea 
of revanche. He played, more or less success- 
fully, with England, sometimes tempting her 
with plausible suggestions that she should join 
the Teutonic Empires on the Continent, some- 
times tlrvvarting her aims by sowing dissensions 
between her and her nearest neighbour, France. 
But there was one empire which, certainly, 
Bismarck dreaded not so much because she 



12 ARMAGEDDON 

was actually of much importance, but because 
she might be. That empire was Russia. The 
last thing in the world Bismarck desired was 
precisely that approximation between France 
and Russia which ended in the strange pheno- 
menon of an offensive and defensive alliance 
between a western republic and a semi-eastern 
despotic empire. 



Kaiser Wilhelm 

Kaiser Wilhelm II had very different ideals 
for Germany, and in many points he simply 
reversed the policy of Bismarck. He began to 
develop the German colonial empire, and in 
order that it might be protected he did all in 
his power to encourage the formation of a large 
German navy. He even allowed himself to 
say that " the future of Germany was on the 
sea." It was part of that peculiar form of 
personal autocracy which the Kaiser introduced 
that he should from time to time invent phrases 
suggestive of different principles of his policy. 
Side by side with the assertion that Germany's 
future was on the sea, we have the phrases 
" Germany wants her place in the sun " and 
that the "drag" of Teutonic development is 
" towards the East." The reality and immi- 
nence of " a yellow peril " was another of his 



-AND AFTER 13 

devices for stimulating the efforts of his country- 
men. Thus the new policy was expansion, 
evolution as a world-power, colonisation ; and 
each in turn brought him up against the older 
arrangement of European Powers. His colonial 
policy, especially in Africa, led to collisions 
with both France and Great Britain. The 
building of the fleet, the Kiel Canal, and other 
details of maritime policy naturally made 
England very suspicious, while the steady drag 
towards the East rendered wholly unavoidable 
the conflict between Teutonism and the Slav 
races. Germany looked, undoubtedly, towards 
Asia Minor, and for this reason made great 
advances to and many professions of friendship 
for the Ottoman Empire. Turkey, indeed, in 
several phrases was declared to be " the natural 
ally " of Germany in the Near East. And if 
we ask why, the answer nowadays is obvious. 
Not only was Turkey to lend herself to the 
encouragement of German commercial enter- 
prise in Asia Minor, but she was, in the judg- 
ment of the Emperor, the one power which 
could in time of trouble make herself especially 
obnoxious to Great Britain. She could en- 
courage revolt in Egypt, and still more, through 
the influence of Mahommedanism, stir up 
disaffection in India. 1 

1 Turkey has now joined Germany. 



14 ARMAGEDDON 

An Aggressive Policy 

And now let us watch this policy in action in 
recent events. In 1897 Germany demanded 
reparation from China for the recent murder of 
two German missionaries. Troops were landed 
at Kiao-chau Bay, a large pecuniary indemnity 
of about £35,000 was refused, and Kiao-chau 
itself with the adjacent territory was ceded to 
Germany. That was a significant demonstra- 
tion of the Emperor's determination to make 
his country a world-power, so that, as was 
stated afterwards, nothing should occur in 
the whole world in which Germany would 
not have her say. Meanwhile, in Europe itself 
event after event occurred to prove the persis- 
tent character of German aggressiveness. On 
March 31, 1905, the German Emperor landed 
at Tangier, in order to aid the Sultan of Morocco 
in his demand for a Conference of the Powers 
to check the military dispositions of France. 
M. Delcasse, France's Foreign Minister, de- 
murred to this proposal, asserting that a Con- 
ference was wholly unnecessary. Thereupon 
Prince Bulow used menacing language, and 
Delcasse resigned in June 1905. The Con- 
ference of Algeciras was held in January 1906, 
in which Austria proved herself " a brilliant 
second " to Germany. Two years afterwards, 



-AND AFTER 15 

in 1908, came still further proofs of Germany's 
ambition. Austria annexed Bosnia and Herze- 
govina. Russia immediately protested; so 
did most of the other Great Powers. But 
Germany at once took up the Austrian cause, 
and stood " in shining armour " side by side 
with her ally. Inasmuch as Russia was, in 
1908, only just recovering from the effects of 
her disastrous war with Japan, and was there- 
fore in no condition to take the offensive, 
the Triple Alliance gained a distinct victory. 
Three years later occurred another striking 
event. In July 1911 the world was startled 
by the news that the German gunboat Panther ', 
joined shortly afterwards by the cruiser Berlin, 
had been sent to Agadir. Clearly Berlin in- 
tended to reopen the whole Moroccan question, 
and the tension between the Powers was for 
some time acute. Nor did Mr. Lloyd George 
make it much better by a fiery speech at the 
Mansion House on July 21, which consider- 
ably fluttered the Continental dovecots. The 
immediate problem, however, was solved by 
the cession of about one hundred thousand 
square miles of territory in the Congo basin by 
France to Germany in compensation for Ger- 
man acquiescence in the French protectorate 
over Morocco. I need not, perhaps, refer to 
other more recent events. One point, however, 



16 ARMAGEDDON 

must not be omitted. The issue of the Balkan 
wars in 1912 caused a distinct disappointment 
to both Germany and Austria. Turkey's 
defeat lessened the importance of the Ottoman 
Empire as an ally. Austria had to curb her 
desires in the direction of Salonica. And the 
enemies who had prevented the realisation of 
wide Teutonic schemes were Servia and her 
protector, Russia. From this time onwards 
Austria waited for an opportunity to avenge 
herself on Servia, while Germany, in close union 
with her ally, began to study the situation in 
relation to the Great Northern Empire in an 
eminently bellicose spirit. 

Militarism 

Now that we have the proper standpoint 
from which to watch the general tendency of 
events like these, we can form some estimate 
of the nature of German ambition and the 
results of the personal ascendancy of the 
Kaiser. We speak vaguely of militarism. 
Fortunately, we have a very valuable document 
to enable us to understand what precisely 
German militarism signifies. General von 
Bernhardi's Germany and the Next War is one 
of the most interesting, as well as most sug- 
gestive, of books, intended to illustrate the 



—AND AFTER 17 

spirit of German ambition. Bernhardi writes 
like a soldier. Such philosophy as he possesses 
he has taken from Nietzsche. His applications 
of history come from Treitschke. He has 
persuaded himself that the main object of 
human life is war, and the higher the nation 
the more persistently must it pursue prepara- 
tions for war. Hence the best men in the State 
are the fighting men. Ethics and religion, so 
far as they deprecate fighting and plead for 
peace, are absolutely pernicious. Culture does 
not mean, as we hoped and thought, the best 
development of scientific and artistic enlighten- 
ment, but merely an all-absorbing will-power, 
an all-devouring ambition to be on the top 
and to crush every one else. The assumption 
throughout is that the German is the highest 
specimen of humanity. Germany is especially 
qualified to be the leader, and the only way 
in which it can become the leader is to have such 
overwhelming military power that no one has 
any chance of resisting. Moreover, all methods 
are justified in the sacred cause of German 
culture — duplicity, violence, the deliberate sow- 
ing of dissensions between possible rivals, 
incitements of Asiatics to rise against Euro- 
peans. All means are to be adopted to win 
the ultimate great victory, and, of course, 
when the struggle comes there must be no 



18 ARMAGEDDON 

misplaced leniency to any of the inferior races 
who interpose between Germany and her legi- 
timate place in the sun. 1 The ideal is almost 
too naive and too ferocious to be conceived 
by ordinary minds. Yet here it all stands in 
black and white. According to Bernhardi's 
volume German militarism means at least two 
things. First the suppression of every other 
nationality except the German; second the 
suppression of the whole civilian element in the 
population under the heel of the German drill- 
sergeant. Is it any wonder that the recent 
war has been conducted by Berlin with such 
appalling barbarism and ferocity ? 

The Evils of Autocracy 

Our inquiry so far has led to two conclusions. 
We have discovered by bitter experience that 
a personal ascendancy, such as the German 
Emperor wields, is in the highest degree perilous 
to the interests of peace : and that a militarism 
such as that which holds in its thrall the 
German Empire is an open menace to intel- 

1 Germany and the Next War, by F. von Bernhardi. 
See especially Chap. V, " World-Power or Downfall." 
Other works which may be consulted are Professor J. A. 
Cramb's Germany and England (esp. pp. 111-112) and 
Professor Usher's Pan-Germanism. 



—AND AFTER 19 

lectual culture and to Christian ethics. But 
we must not suppose that these conclusions 
are only true so far as they apply to the 
Teutonic race, and that the same phenomena 
observed elsewhere are comparatively in- 
nocuous. Alas ! autocracy in any and every 
country seems to be inimical to the best and 
highest of social needs, and militarism, wherever 
found, is the enemy of pacific social develop- 
ment. Let us take a few instances at hap- 
hazard of the danger of the personal factor in 
European politics. There is hardly a person 
to be found nowadays who defends the Crimean 
war, or indeed thinks that it was in any sense 
inevitable. Yet if there was one man more 
than another whose personal will brought it 
about, it was — not Lord Aberdeen who ought 
to have been responsible — but Lord Stratford 
de Redcliffe. " The great Eltchi," as he was 
called, was our Ambassador at Constantinople, 
a man of uncommon strength of will, which, as 
is often the case with these powerful natures, 
not infrequently degenerated into sheer obstin- 
acy. He had made up his mind that England 
was to support Turkey and fight with Russia, 
and inasmuch as Louis Napoleon, for the sake 
of personal glory, had similar opinions, France 
as well as England was dragged into a costly 
and quite useless war. Napoleon III has 



20 ARMAGEDDON 

already figured among those aspiring monarchs 
who wish " to sit in the chair of Europe." It 
was his personal will once more which sent the 
unhappy Maximilian to his death in Mexico, 
and his personal jealousy of Prussia which 
launched him in the fatal enterprise " a Berlin " 
in 1870. In the latter case we find another 
personal influence, still more sinister — that of 
the Empress Eugenie, whose capricious ambi- 
tion and interference in military matters 
directly led to the ruinous disaster of Sedan. 
The French people, who had to suffer, dis- 
covered it too late. " Quicquid delirant reges 
plectuntur Achivi." Or take another more 
recent instance. Who was responsible for the 
Russo-Japanese war? Not Kuropatkin, as- 
suredly, nor yet the Russian Prime Minister, 
but certain of the Grand Dukes and probably 
the Tsar himself, who were interested in the 
forests of the Yalu district and had no mind 
to lose the money they had invested in a purely 
financial operation. The truth is that modern 
Europe has no room for " prancing Pro- 
consuls," and no longer takes stock in autocrats. 
They are, or ought to be, superannuated, out 
of date. To use an expressive colloquialism 
they are " a back number." The progress of 
the world demands the development of peoples ; 
it has no use for mediaeval monarchies like 



-AND AFTER 21 

that of Potsdam. One of the things we ought 
to banish for ever is the horrible idea that whole 
nations can be massacred and civilisation in- 
definitely postponed to suit the individual 
caprice of a bragging and self-opinionated 
despot who calls himself God's elect. Now 
that we know the ruin he can cause, let us 
fight shy of the Superman, and the whole range 
of ideas which he connotes. 



The Military Caste 

Militarism is another of our maladies. Here 
we must distinguish with some care. A mili- 
tary spirit is one thing : militarism is another. 
It is probable that no nation is worthy to 
survive which does not possess a military spirit, 
or, in other words, the instinct to defend itself 
and its liberties against an aggressor. It is a 
virtue which is closely interfused with high 
moral qualities — self-respect, a proper pride, 
self-reliance — and is compatible with real 
modesty and sobriety of mind. But militarism 
has nothing ethical about it. It is not courage, 
but sheer pugnacity and quarrelsomeness, 
and as exemplified in our modern history it 
means the dominion of a clique, the reign of 
a few self-opinionated officials. That these 
individuals should possess only a limited 



22 ARMAGEDDON 

intelligence is almost inevitable. Existing for 
the purposes of war, they naturally look at 
everything from an oblique and perverted point 
of view. They regard nations, not as peaceful 
communities of citizens, but as material to be 
worked up into armies. Their assumption is 
that war, being an indelible feature in the 
history of our common humanity, must be 
ceaselessly prepared for by the piling up of 
huge armaments and weapons of destruction. 
Their invariable motto is that if you wish for 
peace you must prepare for war — " si vis pacem, 
para bellum " — a notoriously false apophthegm, 
because armaments are provocative, not sooth- 
ing, and the man who is a swash-buckler 
invites attack. It is needless to say that 
thousands of military men do not belong to 
this category : no one dreads war so much as 
the man who knows what it means. I am not 
speaking of individuals, I am speaking of a 
particular caste, military officials in the ab- 
stract, if you like to put it so, who, because 
their business is war, have not the slightest idea 
what the pacific social development of a people 
really means. Militarism is simply a one- 
sided, partial point of view, and to enforce that 
upon a nation is as though a man with a 
pronounced squint were to be accepted as a 
man of normal vision. We have seen what it 



—AND AFTER 23 

involves in Germany. In a less offensive form, 
however, it exists in most states, and its root 
idea is usually that the civilian as such belongs 
to a lower order of humanity, and is not so 
important to the State as the officer who dis- 
charges vague and for the most part useless 
functions in the War Office. 1 It is a swollen, 
over-developed militarism that has got us into 
the present mess, and one of our earliest con- 
cerns, when the storm is over, must be to put 
it into its proper place. Let him who uses the 
sword perish by the sword. 

Diplomacy 

And I fear that there is another ancient 
piece of our international strategy which has 
been found wanting. I approach with some 
hesitation the subject of diplomacy, because it 
contains so many elements of value to a state, 
and has given so many opportunities for active 
and original minds. Its worst feature is that 
its operations have to be conducted in secret : 
its best is that it affords a fine exemplification 
of the way in w T hich the history and fortunes 

1 Thus it was the Military party in Bulgaria which drove 
her to the disastrous second Balkan war, and the Military 
party in Austria which insisted on the ultimatum to 
Servia. 



24 ARMAGEDDON 

of states are — to their advantage — dependent 
upon the initiative of gifted and patriotic in- 
dividuals. But if we look back over the histor f 
of recent years, we shall discover that diplo- 
macy has not fulfilled its especial mission. 
According to a well-known cynical dictum a 
diplomatist is a man who is paid to lie for his 
country. And, indeed, it is one of the least 
gracious aspects of the diplomatic career that it 
seems necessarily to involve the use of a certain 
amount of chicanery and falsehood, the object 
being to jockey opponents by means of skilful 
ruses into a position in which they find them- 
selves at a disadvantage. Clearly, however, 
there are better aims than these for diplomacy — 
one aim in particular, which is the preservation 
of peace. A diplomat is supposed to have failed 
if the result of his work leads to war. It is 
not his business to bring about war. Any 
king or prime minister or general can do that, 
very often with conspicuous ease. A diplomat 
is a skilful statesman versed in international 
politics, who makes the best provision he can 
for the interests of his country, carefully steer- 
ing it away from those rocks of angry hostility 
on which possibly his good ship may founder. 



—AND AFTER 25 



Balance of Power 



Now what has diplomacy done for us during 
the last few years? It has formed certain 
understandings and alliances between different 
states; it has tried to safeguard our position 
by creating sympathetic bonds with those 
nations who are allied to us in policy. It has 
also attempted to produce that kind of " Bal- 
ance of Power " in Europe which on its own 
showing makes for peace. This Balance of 
Power, so often and so mysteriously alluded 
to by the diplomatic world, has become a 
veritable fetish. Perhaps its supreme achieve- 
ment was reached when two autocratic mon- 
archs — the Tsar of Russia and the German 
Emperor — solemnly propounded a statement, 
as we have seen, at Port Baltic that the Balance 
of Power, as distributed between the Triple 
Alliance and the Triple Entente, had proved 
itself valuable in the interests of European 
peace. That was only two years ago, and the 
thing seems a mockery now. If we examine 
precisely what is meant by a Balance of Power, 
we shall see that it presupposes certain con- 
ditions of animosity and attempts to neutralise 
them by the exhibition of superior or, at all 
events, equivalent forces. A Balance of Power 
in the continental system assumes, for all 



26 ARMAGEDDON 

practical purposes, that the nations of Europe 
are ready to fly at each other's throats, and 
that the only way to deter them is to make 
them realise how extremely perilous to them- 
selves would be any such military enterprise. 
Can any one doubt that this is the real meaning 
of the phrase? If we listen to the Delphic 
oracles of diplomacy on this subject of the 
Balance of Power, we shall understand that in 
nine cases out of ten a man invoking this 
phrase means that he wants the Balance of 
Power to be favourable to himself. It is not 
so much an exact equipoise that he desires, 
as a certain tendency of the scales to dip in 
his direction. If Germany feels herself weak 
she not only associates Austria and Italy with 
herself, but looks eastward to get the assistance 
of Turkey, or, perhaps, attempts — as it so 
happens without any success — to create sym- 
pathy for herself in the United States of 
America. If, on the other hand, France feels 
herself in danger, she not only forms an alliance 
with Russia, but also an entente with England 
and, on the principle that the friends of one's 
friends ought to be accepted, produces a further 
entente between England and Russia. Eng- 
land, on her part, if for whatever reason she 
feels that she is liable to attack, goes even so 
far as to make an alliance with an Asiatic 



-AND AFTER 27 

nation — Japan — in order to safeguard her 
Asiatic interests in India. Thus, when diplo- 
matists invoke the necessity of a Balance of 
Power, they are really trying to work for a 
preponderance of power on their side. It is 
inevitable that this should be so. An exact 
Balance of Power must result in a stalemate. 



Change of Policy 

Observe what has happened to Great Britain 
during recent years. When she was ruled by 
that extremely clear-headed though obstinate 
statesman, Lord Salisbury, she remained, at 
his advice, outside the circle of continental 
entanglements and rejoiced in what was known 
as a policy of " Splendid Isolation." It was, 
of course, a selfish policy. It rested on sound 
geographical grounds, because, making use of 
the fortunate accident that Great Britain is an 
island, it suggested that she could pursue her 
own commercial career and, thanks to the 
English Channel, let the whole of the rest of 
the world go hang. Such a position could not 
possibly last, partly because Great Britain is 
not only an island, but also an empire scattered 
over the seven seas; partly because we could 
not remain alien from those social and economic 
interests which necessarily link our career with 



28 ARMAGEDDON 

continental nations. So we became part of 
the continental system, and it became neces- 
sary for us to choose friends and partners and 
mark off other peoples as our enemies. It 
might have been possible a certain number of 
years ago for us to join the Triple Alliance. 
At one time Prince Billow seemed anxious that 
we should do so, and Mr. Chamberlain on our 
side was by no means unwilling. But gradually 
we discovered that Germany was intensely 
jealous of us as a colonial power and as a great 
sea-power, and for this reason, as well as for 
others, we preferred to compose our ancient 
differences with France and promote an under- 
standing between English and French as the 
nearest of neighbours and the most convenient 
of allies. Observe, however, that every step 
in the process was a challenge, and a challenge 
which the rival aimed at could not possibly 
ignore. The conclusion of the French Entente 
Cordiale in 1904, the launching of the Dread- 
nought in 1906, the formation of the Russian 
agreement in 1907, and certain changes which 
we made in our own army were obviously 
intended as warnings to Germany that we 
were dangerous people to attack. 1 Germany 
naturally sought reprisals in her fashion, and 

1 See The War of Steel and Gold, by H. N. Brailsford 
(Bell) — opening chapter on "The Balance of Power." 



-AND AFTER 29 

gradually Europe was transformed into a huge 
armed camp, divided into two powerful organisa- 
tions which necessarily watched each other with 
no friendly gaze. 



Balance or Concert? 

I do not say that the course of events could 
possibly have been altered. When once we 
became part of the continental system, it was 
necessary for us to choose between friends 
and enemies. I only say that if diplomacy calls 
itself an agency for preventing war, it cannot be 
said to be altogether successful. Its famous 
doctrine of a Balance of Power is in reality a 
mere phrase. If one combination be repre- 
sented as X and the other as Y, and X in- 
creases itself up to X 2 , it becomes necessary 
that Y should similarly increase itself to Y 2 , a 
process which, clearly, does not make for 
peace. I should imagine that the best of 
diplomatists are quite aware of this. Indeed, 
there seems reason to suppose that Sir Edward 
Grey, owing to definite experience in the last 
two years, not only discovered the uselessness 
of the principle of a Balance of Power, but did 
his best to substitute something entirely differ- 
ent—the Concert of Europe. All the negotia- 
tions he conducted during and after the two 



30 ARMAGEDDON 

Balkan wars, his constant effort to summon 
London Conferences and other things, were 
intended to create a Concert of European 
Powers, discussing amongst themselves the 
best measures to secure the peace of the world. 
Alas ! the whole of the fabric was destroyed, 
the fair prospects hopelessly clouded over, by 
the intemperate ambition of the Kaiser, who, 
just because he believed that the Balance of 
Power was favourable to himself, that Russia 
was unready, that France was involved in 
serious domestic trouble, that England was on 
the brink of civil war, set fire to the magazine 
and engineered the present colossal explosion. 

Control of Foreign Policy 

One cannot feel sure that diplomacy as 
hitherto recognised will be able, or, indeed, 
ought to be able, to survive the shock. In this 
country, as in others, diplomacy has been con- 
sidered a highly specialised science, which can 
only be conducted by trained men and by 
methods of entire secrecy. As a mere matter 
of fact, England has far less control over her 
foreign policy than any of the continental 
Powers. In Germany foreign affairs come 
before the Reichstag, in France they are sur- 
veyed by the Senate, in America there is a 



—AND AFTER 31 

special department of the Senate empowered 
to deal with foreign concerns. In Great Britain 
there is nothing of the kind. Parliament has 
practically no control whatsoever over foreign 
affairs, it is not even consulted in the formation 
of treaties and arrangements with other nations. 
Nor yet has the Cabinet any real control, 
because it must act together as a whole, and a 
determined criticism of a foreign secretary 
means the resignation of the Government. 
Fortunately, our diplomacy has been left for 
the most part in very able hands. Neverthe- 
less, it is surely a paradox that the English 
people should know so little about foreign 
affairs as to be absolutely incapable of any 
control in questions that affect their life or 
death. Democracy, though it is supposed to 
be incompetent to manage foreign relations, 
could hardly have made a worse mess of it 
than the highly-trained Chancelleries. When 
the new Europe arises out of the ashes of the 
old, it is not very hazardous to prophesy that 
diplomacy, with its secret methods, its belief 
in phrases and abstract principles, and its 
assumption of a special professional know- 
ledge, will find the range of its powers and the 
sphere of its authority sensibly curtailed. 



CHAPTER II 

LESSONS OF THE PAST 

The problems that lie before us in the 
reconstitution of Europe are so many and so 
various that we can only hope to take a few 
separately, especially those which seem to 
throw most light on a possible future. I have 
used the phrase " reconstitution of Europe," 
because I do not know how otherwise to 
characterise the general trend of the ideas 
germinating in many men's minds as they 
survey the present crisis and its probable 
outcome. Europe will have to be reconstituted 
in more respects than one. At the present 
moment, or rather before the present war 
broke out, it was governed by phrases and 
conceptions which had become superannuated. 
An uneasy equipoise between the Great Powers 
represented the highest culmination of our 
diplomatic efforts. Something must clearly be 
substituted for this uneasy equipoise. It is 
not enough that after tremendous efforts the 
relative balance of forces between great states 
should, on the whole, dissuade them from war. 

32 



ARMAGEDDON-AND AFTER 33 

As a matter of fact, it has not done so. The 
underlying conception has been that nations 
are so ardently bellicose that they require to 
be restrained from headlong conflicts by the 
doubtful and dangerous character of such 
military efforts as might be practicable. Hence 
Europe, as divided into armed camps, repre- 
sents one of the old-fashioned ideas that we 
want to abolish. We wish to put in its stead 
something like a Concert of Europe. We have 
before our eyes a vague, but inspiring vision 
not of tremendous and rival armaments, but 
of a United States of Europe, each component 
element striving for the public weal, and for 
further advances in general cultivation and 
welfare rather than commercial prosperity. 
The last is a vital point, for it does not require 
much knowledge of modern history to discover 
that the race for commercial advantage is 
exactly one of the reasons why Europe is at 
war at the present moment. A vast increase 
in the commercial prosperity of any one state 
means a frantic effort on the part of its rivals 
to pull down this advantage. In some fashion, 
therefore, we have to substitute for endless com- 
petition the principle of co-operation, national 
welfare being construed at the same time not in 
terms of overwhelming wealth, but of thorough 
sanity and health in the body corporate. 



34 ARMAGEDDON 

Naked Strength 

All this sounds shadowy and abstruse until 
it is translated into something concrete and 
definite. What is it we want to dispossess 
and banish from the Europe of to-day? We 
have to find something to take the place of 
what is called militarism. I dealt with the 
general features of militarism in my last 
essay; I will therefore content myself with 
saying that militarism in Europe has meant 
two things above all. First, the worship of 
might, as expressed in formidable armaments; 
next, the corresponding worship of wealth to 
enable the burden of armaments to be borne 
with comparative ease. The worship of naked 
strength involves several deductions. Right 
disappears, or rather is translated in terms of 
might. International morality equally dis- 
appears. Individuals, it is true, seek to be 
governed by the consciousness of universal 
moral laws. But a nation, as such, has no 
conscience, and is not bound to recognise the 
supremacy of anything higher than itself. 
Morality, though it may bind the individual, 
does not bind the State, or, as General von 
Bernhardi has expressed it, " political morality 
differs from individual morality because there 
is no power above the State." In similar 



—AND AFTER 35 

fashion the worship of wealth carries numerous 
consequences with it, which are well worthy 
of consideration. But the main point, so far 
as it affects my present argument, is that it 
substitutes materialistic objects of endeavour 
for ethical and spiritual aims. Once more 
morality is defeated. The ideal is not the 
supremacy of good, but the supremacy of that 
range and sphere of material efficiency that is 
procurable by wealth. 

Public Right 

Let us try to be more concrete still, and in 
this context let us turn to such definite state- 
ments as are available of the views entertained 
by our chief statesmen, politicians, and leaders 
of public opinion. I turn to the speech which 
Mr. Asquith delivered on Friday evening, 
September 25, in Dublin, as part of the crusade 
which he and others are undertaking for the 
general enlightenment of the country. " I 
should like," said Mr. Asquith, " to ask your 
attention and that of my fellow-countrymen 
to the end which, in this war, we ought to 
keep in view. Forty-four years ago, at the 
time of the war of 1870, Mr. Gladstone used 
these words. He said : ' The greatest triumph 
of our time will be the enthronement of the 



36 ARMAGEDDON 

idea of public right as the governing idea of 
European politics.' Nearly fifty years have 
passed. Little progress, it seems, has as yet 
been made towards that good and beneficent 
change, but it seems to me to be now at this 
moment as good a definition as we can have of 
our European policy — the idea of public right. 
What does it mean when translated into 
concrete terms ? It means, first and foremost, 
the clearing of the ground by the definite 
repudiation of militarism as the governing 
factor in the relation of states and of the future 
moulding of the European world. It means 
next that room must be found and kept for 
the independent existence and the free develop- 
ment of the smaller nationalities, each with a 
corporate consciousness of its own. . . . And 
it means, finally, or it ought to mean, perhaps, 
by a slow and gradual process, the substitution 
for force, for the clash of competing ambition, 
for groupings and alliances, of a real European 
partnership based on the recognition of equal 
right and established and enforced by a 
common will." x 

Much the same language has been used by 
Sir Edward Grey and by Mr. Winston 
Churchill. 

1 The Times, September 26. 



—AND AFTER 37 

A Common Will 

Observe that there are three points here. 
In the first place — if I do not misapprehend 
Mr. Asquith's drift—in working for the aboli- 
tion of militarism, we are working for a great 
diminution in those armaments which have 
become a nightmare to the modern world. 
The second point is that we have to help in 
every fashion small nationalities, or, in other 
words, that we have to see that countries like 
Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, the Scandi- 
navian countries, Greece and the Balkan States, 
and, perhaps, more specially, the Slav nation- 
alities shall have a free chance in Europe, 
shall " have their place in the sun," and not 
be browbeaten and raided and overwhelmed 
by their powerful neighbours. And the third 
point, perhaps more important than all, is 
the creation of what Mr. Asquith calls a 
" European partnership based on the recogni- 
tion of equal right and established and enforced 
by a common will." We have to recognise 
that there is such a thing as public right ; that 
there is such a thing as international morality, 
and that the United States of Europe have to 
keep as their ideal the affirmation of this 
public right, and to enforce it by a common 
will. That creation of a common will is at once 



38 ARMAGEDDON 

the most difficult and the most imperative 
thing of all. Every one must be aware how 
difficult it is. We know, for instance, how the 
common law is enforced in any specified state, 
because it has a " sanction," or, in other words, 
because those who break it can be punished. 
But the weakness for a long time past of inter- 
national law, from the time of Grotius onwards, 
is that it apparently has no real sanction. 
How are we to punish an offending state? 
It can only be done by the gradual develop- 
ment of a public conscience in Europe, and by 
means of definite agreements so that the rest 
of the civilised world shall compel a recalci- 
trant member to abide by the common decrees. 
If only this common will of Europe ever came 
into existence, we should have solved most, if 
not all, our troubles. But the question is : 
How? 



A Hundred Years Ago 

It may be depressing, but it certainly is an 
instructive lesson to go back just a hundred 
years ago, when the condition of Europe 
was in many respects similar to that which 
prevails now. The problems that unrolled 
themselves before the nations afford useful 



—AND AFTER 39 

points of comparison. The great enemy was 
then Napoleon and France. Napoleon's views 
of empire were precisely of that universal 
predatory type which we have learnt to 
associate with the Kaiser and the German 
Empire. The autocratic rule of the single 
personal will was weighing heavily on nearly 
every quarter of the globe. Then came a 
time when the principle of nationality, which 
Napoleon had everywhere defied, gradually 
grew in strength until it was able to shake off 
the yoke of the conqueror. In Germany, and 
Spain, and Italy the principle of nationality 
steadily grew, while in England there had 
always been a steady opposition to the tyranny 
of Napoleon on the precise ground that it 
interfered with the independent existence of 
nations. The defeat of Napoleon, therefore, 
was hailed by our forefathers a hundred years 
ago as the dawn of a new era. Four great 
Powers — Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and 
Prussia — had before them as their task the 
settlement of Europe, one of the noblest tasks 
that could possibly be assigned to those who, 
having suffered under the old regime, were 
desirous to secure peace and base it on just 
and equitable foundations. There is thus an 
obvious parallelism between the conditions of 
affairs in 1815 and those which will, as we hope, 



40 ARMAGEDDON 

obtain if and when the German tyrant is defeated 
and the nations of Europe commence their 
solemn task of reconstituting Europe. Of course, 
we must not press the analogy too far. The 
dawn of a new era might have been welcomed 
in 1815, but the proviso was always kept in the 
background that most of the older traditions 
should be preserved. Diplomacy was still 
inspired by its traditional watchwords. Above 
all, the transformation so keenly and so vaguely 
desired was in the hands of sovereigns who 
were more anxious about their own interests 
than perhaps was consistent with the common 
weal. 



Equilibrium 

At first the four Great Powers proceeded 
very tentatively. They wished to confine 
France — the dangerous element in Europe — 
within her legitimate boundaries. Next, they 
desired to arrange an equilibrium of Powers 
(observe, in passing, the old doctrine of 
the Balance of Power) so that no individual 
state should for the future be in a position to 
upset the general tranquillity. Revolutionary 
France was to be held under by the re- 
establishment of its ancient dynasty. Hence 



—AND AFTER 41 

Louis XVIII was to be restored. The other 
object was to be obtained by a careful parcelling 
out of the various territories of Europe, on the 
basis, so far as possible, of old rights conse- 
crated by treaties. It is unnecessary to go 
into detail in this matter. We may say sum- 
marily that Germany was reconstituted as a 
Confederation of Sovereign States; Austria 
received the Presidency of the Federal Diet ; 
in Italy Lombardo-Venetia was erected into a 
kingdom under Austrian hegemony, while the 
Low Countries were annexed to the crown of 
Holland so as to form, under the title of the 
United Netherlands, an efficient barrier against 
French aggression northwards. It was trouble- 
some to satisfy Alexander I of Russia because 
of his ambition to secure for himself the 
kingdom of Poland. Indeed, as we shall see 
presently, the personality of Alexander was a 
permanent stumbling-block to most of the 
projects of European statesmen. As a whole, 
it cannot be denied that this particular period 
of history, between Napoleon's abdication in 
1814 and the meeting of the European Congress 
at Verona in 1882, presented a profoundly 
distressing picture of international egotism. 
The ruin of their common enemy, relieving 
the members of the European family from the 
necessity of maintaining concord, also released 



42 ARMAGEDDON 

their individual selfishnesses and their long- 
suppressed mutual jealousies. 1 



The Holy Alliance 

The figure of Alexander I dominates this 
epoch. His character exhibits a very curious 
mixture of autocratic ambition and a mystical 
vein of sheer undiluted idealism. Probably it 
would be true to say that he began by being 
an idealist, and was forced by the pressure of 
events to adopt reactionary tactics. Perhaps 
also, deeply embedded in the Russian nature 
we generally find a certain unpracticalness and 
a tendency to mystical dreams, far remote 
from the ordinary necessities of every day. 
It was Alexander's dream to found a Union 
of Europe, and to consecrate its political by 
its spiritual aims. He retained various nebu- 
lous thinkers around his throne; he also 
derived much of his crusade from the inspira- 
tion of a woman — Baroness von Kriidener, 
who is supposed to have owed her own con- 
version to the teaching of a pious cobbler. 
Even if we have to describe Alexander's dream 

1 See The Confederation of Europe, by Walter Alison 
Phillips (Longmans), esp. Chapters V and VI. Cf. also 
Political and Literary Essays, by the Earl of Cromer, 2nd 
series (Macmillan), on The Confederation of Europe. 



-AND AFTER 43 

as futile, we cannot afford to dismiss it as 
wholly inoperative. For it had as its fruit the 
so-called Holy Alliance, which was in a sense 
the direct ancestor of the peace programmes 
of the Hague, and, through a different chain of 
ideas, the Monroe Doctrine of the United 
States. We are apt sometimes to confuse the 
Holy Alliance with the Grand Alliance. The 
second, however, was a union of the four 
Great Powers, to which France was ultimately 
admitted. The first was not an alliance at all, 
hardly, perhaps, even a treaty. It was in its 
original conception a single-hearted attempt to 
arrange Europe on the principles of the Christian 
religion, the various nations being regarded as 
brothers who ought to have proper brotherly 
affection for one another. We know that, 
eventually, the Holy Alliance became an instru- 
ment of something like autocratic despotism, 
but in its essence it was so far from being 
reactionary that, according to the Emperor 
Alexander, it involved the grant of liberal 
constitutions by princes to their subjects. 

Diplomatic Criticism 

But just because it bound its signatories to 
act on certain vague principles for no well- 
defined ends, it was bound to become the 



44 ARMAGEDDON 

mockery of diplomatists trained in an older 
school. Metternich, for instance, called it a 
" loud sounding nothing " ; Castlereagh " a 
piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense," 
while Canning declared that for his part he 
wanted no more of " Areopagus and the like 
of that." What happened on this occasion 
is what ordinarily happens with well-inten- 
tioned idealists who happen also to be amateur 
statesmen. Trying to regulate practical politics, 
the Holy Alliance was deflected from its original 
purpose because its chief author, Alexander I, 
came under the influence of Metternich and was 
frightened by revolutionary movements in Italy 
and within his own dominions. Thus the 
instrument originally intended to preserve 
nationalities and secure the constitutional 
rights of people was converted into a weapon 
for the use of autocrats only anxious to pre- 
serve their own thrones. Nevertheless, though 
it may have been a failure, the Holy Alliance 
did not leave itself without witness in the 
modern world. It tried to regulate ordinary 
diplomacy in accordance with ethical and 
spiritual principles; and the dreaming mind 
of its first founder was reproduced in that 
later descendant of his who initiated the 
Hague propaganda of peace. 



AND AFTER 45 



Failure 

" These things were written for our en- 
samples," and we should be foolish indeed if 
we did not take stock of them with an anxious 
eye to the future. The main and startling 
fact is that with every apparent desire for 
the re-establishment of Europe on better 
lines, Europe, as a matter of fact, drifted back 
into the old welter of conflicting nationalities, 
while the very instrument of peace — the Holy 
Alliance — was used by autocratic governments 
for the subjection of smaller nationalities and 
the destruction of popular freedom. It is 
accordingly very necessary that we should 
study the conditions under which so startling 
a transformation took place. Even in England 
herself it cannot be said that the people were in 
any sense benefited by the conclusions of the 
war. They had borne its burdens, but at its 
end found themselves hampered as before in 
the free development of a democracy. Mean- 
while, Europe at large presented a spectacle of 
despotism tempered by occasional popular out- 
breaks, while in the majority of cases the old 
fetters were riveted anew by cunning and by 
no means disinterested hands. 



46 ARMAGEDDON 

A Deceptive Parallel 

What we have to ask ourselves is whether 
the conditions a hundred years ago have any- 
real similarity with those likely to obtain when 
Europe begins anew to set its house in order. 
To this, fortunately, we can return a decided 
negative. We have already shown that the 
general outlines present a certain similarity, 
but the parallelism is at most superficial, and 
in many respects deceptive. A despot has to 
be overthrown, an end has to be put to a 
particular form of autocratic regime, and 
smaller states have to be protected against 
the exactions of their stronger neighbours— 
that is the extent of the analogy. But it is 
to be hoped that we shall commence our 
labours under much better auspices. The 
personal forces involved, for instance, are 
wholly different. Amongst those who took 
upon themselves to solve the problems of the 
time is to be found the widest possible diver- 
gence in character and aims. On the one side 
we have a sheer mystic and idealist in the 
person of Alexander I, with all kinds of 
visionary characters at his side — La Harpe, 
who was his tutor, a Jacobin pure and simple, 
and a fervent apostle of the teachings of 
Jean Jacques Rousseau; Czartoryski, a Pole, 



—AND AFTER 47 

sincerely anxious for the regeneration of his 
kingdom; and Capo d'Istria, a champion of 
Greek nationality. To these we have to add 
the curious figure of the Baroness von Kriidener, 
an admirable representative of the religious 
sickliness of the age. " I have immense things 
to say to him," she said, referring to the 
Emperor, " the Lord alone can prepare his 
heart to receive them." She had, indeed, 
many things to say to him, but her influence 
was evanescent and his Imperial heart was 
hardened eventually to quite different issues. 

Metternich 

Absolutely at the other extreme was a man 
like Metternich, trained in the old school of 
politics, wily with the wiliness of a practised 
diplomatic training, naturally impatient of 
speculative dreamers, thoroughly practical in 
the only sense in which he understood the term, 
that is to say, determined to preserve Austrian 
supremacy. To a reactionary of this kind the 
Holy Alliance represented nothing but words. 
He knew, with the cynicism bred of long 
experience of mankind, that the rivalries and 
jealousies between different states would pre- 
vent their union in any common purpose, and 
in the long run the intensity with which he 



48 ARMAGEDDON 

pursued his objects, narrow and limited as it 
was, prevailed over the large and vague 
generosity of Alexander's nature. To the same 
type belonged both Talleyrand and Richelieu, 
who concentrated themselves on the single task 
of winning back for France her older position 
in the European commonwealth — a laudable 
aim for patriots to espouse, but one which 
was not likely to help the cause of the Holy 
Alliance. 



Castlereagh and Canning 

Half-way between these two extremes of 
unpractical idealists and extremely practical 
but narrow-minded reactionaries come the 
English statesmen, Castlereagh, Wellington, 
and Canning. Much injustice has been done 
to the first of these. For many critics have 
been misled by Byron's denunciation of Castle- 
reagh, just as others have spoken lightly of the 
stubborn conservatism of Wellington, or the 
easy and half-cynical insouciance of the author 
of the Anti-Jacobin. As a matter of fact, 
Castlereagh was by no means an opponent of 
the principles of the Holy Alliance. He joined 
with Russia, Austria, and Prussia as a not 
unwilling member of the successive Congresses, 
but both he and Wellington, true to their 



—AND AFTER 49 

national instincts, sought to subordinate all 
proposals to the interests of Great Britain, and 
to confine discussions to immediate objects, 
such as the limitation of French power and 
the suppression of dangerous revolutionary 
ideas. They were not, it is true, idealists in 
the sense in which Alexander I understood the 
term. And yet, on the whole, both Castlereagh 
and Canning did more for the principle of 
nationality than any of the other diplomatists 
of the time. The reason why Canning broke 
with the Holy Alliance, after Troppau, Laibach, 
and Verona, was because he discerned some- 
thing more than a tendency on the part of 
Continental States to crush the free develop- 
ment of peoples, especially in reference to the 
Latin-American States of South America. It 
is true that in these matters he and his successor 
were guided by a shrewd notion of British 
interest, but it would be hardly just to blame 
them on this account. " You know my politics 
well enough," wrote Canning in 1822 to the 
British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, " to 
know what I mean when I say that for Europe 
I should be desirous now and then to read 
England." Castlereagh was, no doubt, more 
conciliatory than Canning, but he saw the 
fundamental difficulty of organising an inter- 
national system and yet holding the balance 



50 ARMAGEDDON 

between conflicting nations. And thus we get 
to a result such as seems to have rejoiced the 
heart of Canning, when he said in 1823 that 
" the issue of Verona has split the one and 
indivisible alliance into three parts as distinct 
as the constitutions of England, France, and 
Muscovy." " Things are getting back," he 
added, "to a wholesome state again. Every 
nation for itself and God for us all. Only bid 
your Emperor (Alexander I) be quiet, for the 
time for Areopagus and the like of that is 
gone by." 1 



Earthen Vessels 

If, then, the ardent hopes of a regenerated 
Europe in the early years of the nineteenth 
century failed, the result was due in large 
measure to the fact that the business was 
committed to wrong hands. The organs for 
working the change were for the most part 
autocratic monarchs and old-world diplomat- 
ists—the last people in the world likely to bring 
about a workable millennium. A great crisis 
demands very careful manipulation. Cynicism 
must not be allowed to play any part in it. 
Traditional watchwords are not of much use. 

1 The Confederation of Europe, by W. A. Phillips, p. 280. 



-AND AFTER 51 

Theoretical idealism itself may turn out to be 
a most formidable stumbling-block. Yet no 
one can doubt that a solution of the problem, 
whenever it is arrived at, must come along the 
path of idealism. Long ago a man of the 
world was defined as a man who in every 
serious crisis is invariably wrong. He is wrong 
because he applies old-fashioned experience 
to a novel situation— old wine in new bottles — 
and because he has no faith in generous aspira- 
tions, having noted their continuous failure in 
the past. Yet, after all, it is only faith which 
can move mountains, and the Holy Alliance 
itself was not so much wrong in the principles 
to which it appealed as it was in the personages 
who signed it. We have noticed already that, 
like all other great ideas, it did not wholly 
die. The propaganda of peace, however futile 
may be some of the discussions of pacifists, 
is the heritage which even so wrong-headed a 
man as Alexander I has left to the world. 
The idea of arbitration between nations, the 
solution of difficulties by arguments rather 
than by swords, the power which democracies 
hold in their hands for guiding the future 
destinies of the world— all these in their various 
forms remain with us as legacies of that 
splendid, though ineffective, idealism which 
lay at the root of the Holy Alliance. 



52 ARMAGEDDON 

Small Nationalities 

And now after this digression, which has 
been necessary to clear the ground, and also 
to suggest apt parallels, let us return to what 
Mr. Asquith said in Dublin on the ultimate 
objects of the present war. He borrowed from 
Mr. Gladstone the phrase " the enthronement 
of the idea of public right as the governing 
idea of European politics," and in developing 
it as applicable to the present situation he 
pointed out that for us three definite objects 
are involved. The first, assented to by every 
publicist of the day, apart from those educated 
in Germany, is the wholesale obliteration of 
the notion that states exist simply for the 
sake of going to war. This kind of militarism, 
in all its different aspects, will have to be 
abolished. The next point brings us at once 
to the heart of some of the controversies raised 
in 1815 and onwards. " Room," said Mr. 
Asquith— agreeing in this matter with Mr. 
Winston Churchill—" room must be found, 
and kept, for the independent existence and 
the free development of the smaller nation- 
alities, each with a corporate consciousness of 
its own." Now this is a plain issue which 
every one can understand. Not only did we 
go to war in order to help a small nationality— 



—AND AFTER 53 

Belgium — but the very principle of nationality 
is one of the familiar phrases which have 
characterised British policy through the greater 
part of the nineteenth century. Our principle 
is to live and let live, to allow smaller states 
to exist and thrive by the side of their large 
neighbours without undue interference on the 
part of the latter. Each distinct nationality 
is to have its voice, at all events, in the free 
direction of its own future. And, above all, 
its present and future position must be deter- 
mined not by the interests of the big Powers, 
but by a sort of plebiscite of the whole nation- 
ality. 

Some Plain Issues 
Applying such principles to Europe as it 
exists to-day, and as it is likely to exist to- 
morrow, we arrive at certain very definite 
conclusions. The independence of Belgium 
must be secured, so also must the independence 
of Holland and Denmark. Alsace and Lor- 
raine must, if the inhabitants so wish, be 
restored to France, and there can be little 
doubt that Alsace at all events will be only 
too glad to resume her old allegiance to the 
French nation. The Duchies of Schleswig- 
Holstein must also decide whether they would 
like to be reunited to Denmark. And we are 



54 ARMAGEDDON 

already aware that the Tsar has promised to 
give independence to the country of Poland— 
a point which forms a curious analogy with the 
same offer originally proposed by the Tsar's 
ancestor, Alexander I. Of course, these do 
not exhaust by any means the changes that 
must be forthcoming. Finland will have to 
be liberated; those portions of Transylvania 
which are akin to Roumania must be allowed 
to gravitate towards their own stock. Italy 
must arrogate to herself— if she is wise enough 
to join her forces with those of the Triple 
Entente — those territories which come under 
the general title of " unredeemed Italy "—the 
Trentino and Trieste, to say nothing of what 
Italy claims on the Adriatic littoral. Possibly 
the greatest changes of all will take place in 
reference to the Slavs. Servia and Montenegro 
will clearly wish to incorporate in a great Slav 
kingdom a great many of their kinsmen who 
at present are held in uneasy subjection by 
Austria. 1 Nor must we forget how these same 
principles apply to the Teutonic States. If the 
principle of nationality is to guide us, we must 
preserve the German nation, even though we 
desire to reduce its dangerous elements to 
impotence. Prussia must remain the home of 

1 The entrance of Turkey into the quarrel of course 
brings new factors into the ultimate settlement. 



—AND AFTER 55 

all those Germans who accept the hegemony of 
Berlin, but it does not follow that the southern 
states of the German Empire — who have not been 
particularly fond of their northern neighbours — 
should have to endure any longer the Prussian 
yoke. Lastly, the German colonies can hardly 
be permitted to remain under the dominion of 
the Kaiser. 1 Here are only a few of the 
changes which may metamorphose the face of 
Europe as a direct result of enforcing the 
principle of nationalities. 

European Partnership 

But there is a further point to which Mr. 
Asquith referred, one which is more important 
than anything else, because it represents the 
far-off ideal of European peace and the peace 
of the world. " We have got to substitute 
by a slow and gradual process," said Mr. As- 
quith, " instead of force, instead of the clash 
of compelling ambition, instead of groupings 
and alliances, a real European partnership, 
based on the recognition of equal right and 
established and enforced by a common will." 
There we have the whole crux of the situation, 
and, unfortunately, we are forced to add, its 
main difficulty. For if we desire to summarise 

1 Cf. Who is Responsible? by Cloudesley Brereton 
(Harrap), Chapter IV, " The Settlement." 



56 ARMAGEDDON 

in a single sentence the rock on which European 
negotiations from 1815 to 1829 ultimately 
split, it was the union of two such contradictory- 
things as independent nationalities and an 
international committee or system of public 
law. Intrinsically the two ideas are opposed, 
for one suggests absolute freedom, and the 
other suggests control, superintendence, inter- 
ference. If the one recognises the entire in- 
dependence of a nationality within its own 
limits, the other seeks to enforce something 
of the nature of a European police to see that 
every nation does its duty. It is true, of 
course, that this public will of Europe must 
be incorporated in a kind of parliament, to 
which the separate nations must send their 
representatives, and that thus in a fashion 
each nation will have its proper say in any 
of the conclusions arrived at. But here the 
difficulty starts anew owing to the relative 
size, and therefore the relative importance 
of the different states constituting the union. 
If all alike are given an equivalent vote, it is 
rather hard on the big states, which represent 
larger numbers and therefore control larger 
destinies. If, on the other hand, we adopt the 
principle of proportional representation, we 
may be pretty certain that the larger states 
will press somewhat heavily on the smaller. 



-AND AFTER 57 

For instance, suppose that some state violates, 
or threatens to violate, the public law of the 
world. In that case the Universal Union 
must, of course, try to bring it to reason by 
peaceful means first, but if that should fail, 
the only other alternative is by force of arms. 
I( once we admit the right of the world- 
organisation to coerce its recalcitrant members, 
what becomes of the sovereign independence 
of nations? That, as we have said, was the 
main difficulty confronting the European peace- 
maker of a hundred years ago, and, however 
we may choose to regard it, it remains a diffi- 
culty, we will not say insuperable, but at all 
events exceedingly formidable, for the European 
peace-makers of the twentieth century. The 
antithesis is the old antithesis between order 
and progress; between coercion and indepen- 
dence ; between the public voice, or, if we like 
to phrase it so, the public conscience, and the 
arbitrariness and irresponsibility of individual 
units. Or we might put the problem in a still 
wider form. A patriot is a man who believes 
intensely in the rights of his own nationality. 
But if we have to form a United States of 
Europe we shall have gradually to soften, 
diminish, or perhaps even destroy the narrower 
conceptions of patriotism. The ultimate evolu- 
tion of democracy in the various peoples means 



58 ARMAGEDDON 

the mutual recognition of their common in- 
terests, as against despotism and autocracy. 
It is clear that such a process must gradually 
wipe out the distinction between the different 
peoples, and substitute for particularism some- 
thing of universal import. In such a process 
what, we ask once more, becomes of the prin- 
ciple of nationality, which is one of our imme- 
diate aims? In point of fact, it is obvious 
that, from a strictly logical standpoint, the 
will of Europe, or the public right of Europe, 
and the free independence of nationalities are 
antithetical terms, and will continue to remain 
so, however cunningly, by a series of com- 
promises, we may conceal their essential diver- 
gence. That is the real problem which confronts 
us quite as obstinately as it did our forefathers 
after the destruction of the Napoleonic power. 
And it will have to be faced by all reformers, 
whether they are pacifists or idealists, on ethical 
or political grounds. 

A Moral for Pacifists 

What is the outcome of the foregoing con- 
siderations ? The only moral at present which 
I am disposed to draw is one which may be 
addressed to pacifists in general, and to all 
those who avail themselves of large and 
generous phrases, such as " the public will of 



-AND AFTER 59 

Europe," or " the common consciousness of 
civilised states." The solution of the problem 
before us is not to be gained by the use of 
abstract terms, but by very definite and con- 
crete experience used in the most practical 
way to secure immediate reforms. We demand, 
for instance, the creation of what is to all 
intents and purposes an international federal 
system applied to Europe at large. Now it is 
obvious that a federal system can be created 
amongst nations more or less at the same level 
of civilisation, inspired by much the same 
ideals, acknowledging the same end of their 
political and social activity. But in what 
sense is this true of Europe as we know it? 
There is every kind of diversity between the 
constituent elements of the suggested federa- 
tion. There is no real uniformity of political 
institutions and ideals. But in order that our 
object may be realised it is precisely this 
uniformity of political institutions and ideals 
amongst the nations which we require. How 
is a public opinion formed in any given state ? 
It comes into being owing to a certain com- 
munity of sentiments, opinions, and prejudices, 
and without such community it cannot develop. 
The same thing holds true of international 
affairs. If we desiderate the public voice of 
Europe, or the public conscience of Europe, 



60 ARMAGEDDON 

Europe must grow to be far more concordant 
than it is at present, both in actual political 
institutions and in those inspiring ideals which 
form the life-blood of institutions. How many 
states, for instance, recognise or put into 
practice a really representative system of 
government ? 

Compulsory Arbitration 

If we turn to the programme of the pacifists, 
we shall be confronted by similar difficulties. 
Pacifism, as such, involves an appeal to all the 
democracies, asking them to come into line, as 
it were, for the execution of certain definite 
projects intended to seek peace and ensure it. 
The first stage of the peace movement is the 
general recognition of the principle of arbitra- 
tion between states. That first period has, 
we may take it, been already realised. The 
second stage is the recognition of compulsory 
arbitration. When, in 1907, the second Hague 
Conference was held, this principle was sup- 
ported by thirty-two different states, repre- 
senting more than a thousand million human 
beings. Something like three or four hundred 
millions remained not yet prepared to admit 
the principle in its entirety. I may remark in 
passing that the verbal acceptance of a general 
principle is one thing, the application, as we 



—AND AFTER 61 

have lately had much reason to discover, is 
quite another. We may recognise, however, 
that this second stage of the pacifist programme 
has, undoubtedly, made large advances. But 
of course it must necessarily be followed by 
its consequence, a third stage which shall 
ensure respect for, and obedience to arbitra- 
tion verdicts. Recalcitrant states will have 
to be coerced, and the one thing that can coerce 
them is an international police administered 
by an international executive power. That is 
to say, we must have a parliament of parlia- 
ments, a universal parliament, the repre- 
sentatives of which must be selected by the 
different constituent members of the United 
States of Europe. When this has been done, 
and only when this has been done, can we 
arrive at a fourth stage, that of a general dis- 
armament. In the millennium that is to be 
it is only the international police which shall 
be allowed to use weapons of war in order to 
execute the decrees of the central parliament 
representing the common European will. 

Democratic Unanimity 

Here we have all the old difficulties starting 
anew, and especially the main one — democratic 
unanimity. How far the democracies of the 
European Commonwealth can work in unison is 



62 ARMAGEDDON— AND AFTER 

one of the problems which the future will have 
to solve. At present they, obviously, do not do 
so. The Social Democrats of Germany agreed 
to make war on the democrats of other countries. 
Old instincts were too strong for them. For it 
must always be remembered that only so far 
as a cosmopolitan spirit takes the place of 
narrow national prejudices can we hope to 
reach the level of a common conscience, or a 
common will of Europe. And are we prepared 
to say that national prejudices ought to be 
obliterated and ignored? The very principle 
of nationality forbids it. 

I do not wish, however, to end on a note of 
pessimism. The mistake of the pacifist has 
all along been the assumption that bellicose 
impulses have died away. They have done 
nothing of the kind, and are not likely to do 
so. But, happily, all past experience in the 
world's history shows us that ideas in a real 
sense govern the world, and that a logical 
difficulty is not necessarily a practical im- 
possibility. In this case, as in others, a noble 
and generous idea of European peace will 
gradually work its own fulfilment, if we are 
not in too much of a hurry to force the pace, 
or imagine that the ideal has been reached 
even before the preliminary foundations have 
been laid. 



CHAPTER III 

SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS 

It is an obvious criticism on the considera- 
tions which have been occupying us in the 
preceding chapters that they are too purely 
theoretical to be of any value. They are indeed 
speculative, and, perhaps, from one point of 
view come under the edge of the usual con- 
demnation of prophecy. Prophecy is, of course, 
if one of the most interesting, also one of the 
most dangerous of human ingenuities, and the 
usual fate of prophets is, in nine cases out of 
ten, to be proved wrong. Moreover, it is 
possible that there may come an issue to the 
present war which would be by far the worst 
which the human mind can conceive. It may 
end in a deadlock, a stalemate, an impasse, 
because the two opposing forces are so equal 
that neither side can get the better of the other. 
If peace has to be made because of such a 
balance between the opposing forces as this, 
it would be a calamity almost worse than the 
original war. German militarism would still 
be unsubdued, the Kaiser's pretensions to 
universal sovereignty, although clipped, would 
not be wiped out, and we should find remaining 



64 ARMAGEDDON 

in all the nations of the earth a sort of sullen 
resentment which could not possibly lead to 
anything else than a purely temporary truce. 
The only logical object of war is to make war 
impossible, and if merely an indecisive result 
were achieved in the present war, it would be 
as certain as anything human can be that a fresh 
war would soon arise. At the present moment 
we confess that there is an ugly possibility of 
this kind, and that it is one of the most formid- 
able perils of future civilisation. 

An Ignoble Pacification 

It is so immensely important, however, that 
the cause of the Allies should prevail not for 
their own sakes alone, but for the sake of the 
world, that it is difficult to imagine their con- 
senting to an ignoble pacification. The Allies 
have signed an important document, in order 
to prove their solidarity, that no one of them 
will sign peace without the sanction of the 
other partners. Let us suppose that the rival 
armies have fought each other to a standstill; 
let us suppose that France is exhausted; let 
us further suppose that the German troops, 
by their mobility and their tactical skill, are 
able to hold the Russians in the eastern 
sphere of war. We can suppose all these 



—AND AFTER 65 

things, but what we cannot imagine even for 
a moment is that Great Britain — to confine 
ourselves only to our own case — will ever con- 
sent to stop until she has achieved her object. 
America may strive to make the combatants 
desist from hostilities, partly because she is a 
great pacific power herself, and partly because 
it is a practical object with her as a commercial 
nation to secure tranquil conditions. Yet, 
even so, there would be no answer to the ques- 
tion which most thoughtful minds would pro- 
pound : Why did we go to war, and what have 
we gained by the war ? If we went to war for 
large cosmic purposes, then we cannot consent 
to a peace which leaves those ultimate purposes 
unfulfilled. I think, therefore, we can put 
aside this extremely uncomfortable suggestion 
that the war may possibly end in a deadlock, 
because, in the last resort, Great Britain, with 
her fleet, her sister dominions over the seas, 
her colonies, and her eastern ally Japan, will 
always, to use the familiar phrase, have " some- 
thing up her sleeve," even though continental 
nations should reach a pitch of absolute 
exhaustion. 

A New Europe 

It follows then that, even if we admit the 
purely speculative character of our argument, 



66 ARMAGEDDON 

it is not only right and proper, but absolutely 
necessary that we should prepare ourselves 
for something which we can really describe 
as a new Europe. Thoughtful minds ought 
imaginatively to put themselves in the position 
of a spectator of a reconstituted world, or 
rather of a world that waits to be reconstituted. 
It is necessary that this should be done, because 
so many older prejudices have to be swept away, 
so many novel conceptions have to be enter- 
tained. Let us take only a single example. 
If we look back over history, we shall see that 
all the great nations have made themselves 
great by war. There is a possible exception 
in the case of Italy, whose present greatness 
has flowed from loyal help rendered her by 
other kindred nations, and by realising for 
herself certain large patriotic ideals entertained 
by great minds. But for the majority of 
nations it is certainly true that they have fought 
their way into the ranks of supreme powers. 
From this the deduction is easy that greatness 
depends on the possession of formidable mili- 
tary power. Indeed, all the arguments of 
those who are very anxious that we should not 
reduce our armaments is entirely based on this 
supposition. The strong man armed keepeth 
his goods in peace; his only fear is that a 
stronger man may come with better arms and 



—AND AFTER 67 

take away his possessions. Now if the new 
Europe dawns not indeed for those who are 
past middle age— for they will have died before 
its realisation — but for the younger generation 
for whose sake we are bearing the toil and 
burden of the day, the one thing which is 
absolutely necessary is that the index of great- 
ness must no longer be found in armies and 
navies. Clearly it will take a long time for 
men to get used to this novel conception. In- 
veterate prejudices will stand in the way. We 
shall be told over and over again that peace- 
lovers are no patriots; that imperialism de- 
mands the possible sacrifice of our manhood 
to the exigencies of war ; and that the only class 
of men who are ever respected in this world 
are those who can fight. And so, even though 
we have had ocular demonstration of the 
appalling ruin which militarism can produce, 
we may yet, if we are not careful, forget all our 
experience and drift back into notions which 
are not really separable from precisely those 
ideas which we are at present reprobating in 
the German nation. The real test is this : Is, 
or is not, war a supreme evil ? It is no answer 
to this question to suggest that war educes 
many splendid qualities. Of course it does. 
And so, too, does exploration of Polar solitudes, 
or even climbing Alpine or Himalayan heights. 



68 ARMAGEDDON 

Either war is a detestable solution of our 
difficulties, or it is not. If it is not, then we 
have no right whatsoever to object to the 
Prussian ideal. But if it is, let us call it by its 
proper name. Let us say that it is devil's 
work, and have done with it. 



Evil of Armaments 

We are trying not only to understand what 
Europe will be like if, as we hope, this war 
ends successfully for the Allies, but what sort 
of new Europe it will be in the hands of the 
conquerors to frame. Those who come after 
us are to find in that new Europe real possi- 
bilities of advance in all the higher kinds of 
civilisation. Not only are the various states 
to contain sane and healthy people who desire 
to live in peace with their neighbours, but people 
who will desire to realise themselves in science, 
in philosophic thought, in art, in literature. 
What is an indispensable condition for an 
evolution of this sort ? It must be the absence 
of all uneasiness, the growth of a serene con- 
fidence and trust, the obliteration of envy, 
jealousy, and every kind of unreasonableness. 
The cause, above all others, which has produced 
an opposite condition of things, which has 
created the unfortunate Europe in which we 



—AND AFTER 69 

have hitherto had to live, is the growth and 
extension of armaments. The main factor, 
then, in our problem is the existence of such 
swollen armaments as have wasted the re- 
sources of every nation and embittered the 
minds of rival peoples. How are we to meet 
this intolerable evil of armaments ? 



Absence of Provocation 

In the first place, let us remark that on our 
supposition — the eventual victory of the Allies 
— one of the great disturbing elements will 
have been put out of the field. Europe has 
hitherto been lulled into an uneasy and fractious 
sleep by the balance of two great organisations. 
Under the happiest hypothesis the Triple 
Alliance and the Triple Entente will have dis- 
appeared into the deep backward and abysm 
of time. For all practical purposes there will 
be no Triple Alliance, and therefore no Triple 
Entente to confront it. With Austria wiped 
out of the map for all purposes of offence, and 
Germany restricted within modest dimensions, 
the three powers of the Triple Entente — Great 
Britain, France, and Russia — can do what they 
like, and as they are sworn friends and allies 
they can take their own steps undisturbed by 
fears of hostile combinations. Why should 



70 ARMAGEDDON 

these three allies consent any further to keep 
up bloated armaments? It is against their 
own interests and against the interests of the 
world. So long as Germany existed as a power 
and developed her own ambitions, we were 
always on the edge of a catastrophe. With 
the conquest of Germany that nightmare will 
have gone. And observe some of the conse- 
quences which must inevitably follow. It was 
against the menace of Germany that France 
had to pass her three years' law of military 
service : in the absence of the German army 
France can reduce as she pleases her military 
establishment. It was against the menace of a 
German fleet that we had to incur an outlay of 
millions of pounds : in the absence of the 
German fleet we, too, can do what we please. 
It is certain also that Russia, so long as the 
deep-seated antagonism between Teuton and 
Slav remained, was under strong compulsion 
to reform and reinforce her army. 

Fear of Russia 

There may, it is true, remain in some minds 
a certain fear about Russia, because it is 
difficult to dispel the old conception of a 
great despotic Russian autocracy, or, if we 
like to say so, a semi- eastern and half- 
barbarous power biding her time to push 



-AND AFTER 71 

her conquests both towards the rising and the 
setting sun. But many happy signs of quite 
a new spirit in Russia have helped to allay our 
fears. It looks as if a reformed Russia might 
arise, with ideas of constitutionalism and 
liberty and a much truer conception of what 
the evolution of a state means. At the very 
beginning of the war the Tsar issued a striking 
proclamation to the Poles, promising them a 
restoration of the national freedom which they 
had lost a century and a half previously. This 
doubtless was a good stroke of policy, but also 
it seemed something more — a proof of that 
benevolent idealism which belongs to the 
Russian nature, and of which the Tsar himself 
has given many signs. Of the three nations 
who control the Poles, the Austrians have done 
most for their subjects : at all events, the Poles 
under Austrian control are supposed to be the 
most happy and contented. Then come the 
Russian Poles. But the Poles under German 
government are the most miserable of all, 
mainly because all German administration is 
so mechanical, so hard, in a real sense so in- 
human. But this determination of the Tsar 
to do some justice to the Polish subjects is not 
the only sign of a newer spirit we have to deal 
with. There was also a proclamation promis- 
ing liberty to the Jews— a very necessary piece 



72 ARMAGEDDON 

of reform — and giving, as an earnest of the good 
intentions of the Government, commissions to 
Jews in the army. Better than all other evi- 
dence is the extraordinary outburst of patriotic 
feeling in all sections of the Russian people. 
It looks as if this war has really united Russia 
in a sense in which it has never been united 
before. When we see voluntary service offered 
on the part of those who hitherto have felt 
themselves the victims of Russian autocracy, 
we may be pretty certain that even the re- 
formers in the great northern kingdom have 
satisfied themselves that their long-deferred 
hopes may at length gain fulfilment. Nor 
ought we to forget that splendid act of reform 
which has abolished the Imperial monopoly of 
the sale of vodka. If by one stroke of the pen 
the Tsar can sacrifice ninety-three millions of 
revenue in order that Russia may be sober, it 
is not very extravagant to hope that in virtue 
of the same kind of benevolent despotism 
Russia may secure a liberal constitution and 
the Russian people be set free. 1 

Military Autocracy 

The end of a great war, however, has one 
inevitable result, that it leaves a military 

1 See Our Russian Ally, by Sir Donald Mackenzie 
Wallace (Macmillan). 



—AND AFTER 73 

autocracy in supreme control of affairs. The 
armies which have won the various campaigns, 
the generals who have led them, the Com- 
manders-in-Chief who have carried out the 
successful strategy, these are naturally left 
with almost complete authority in their hands. 
Wellington, for instance, a hundred years ago, 
held an extraordinarily strong position in 
deciding the fate of Europe. And so, too, did 
the Russian Tsar, whose armies had done so 
much to destroy the legend of Napoleonic 
invincibility. Similar conditions must be ex- 
pected on the present occasion. And, perhaps, 
the real use of diplomats, if they are prudent 
and level-headed men, is to control the ambi- 
tions of the military element, to adopt a wider 
outlook, to consider the ultimate consequences 
rather than the immediate effects of things. 
It would indeed be a lamentable result if a 
war which was intended to destroy militarism 
in Europe should end by setting up militarism 
in high places. 

Limitation of Armaments 

Thus we seem to see still more clearly than 
before that the size of armaments in Europe 
constitutes a fundamental problem with which 
we have to grapple. Every soldier, as a matter 



74 ARMAGEDDON 

of course, believes in military armaments, and 
is inclined to exaggerate their social and not 
merely their offensive value. Those of us who 
are not soldiers, but who are interested in the 
social and economic development of the nation, 
know, on the contrary, that the most destruc- 
tive and wasteful form of expenditure is that 
which is occupied with armaments grown so 
bloated that they go far to render the most 
pressing domestic reforms absolutely impos- 
sible. How, then, can we limit the size of 
armaments ? What provision can we make 
to keep in check that desire to fortify itself, 
to entrench itself in an absolutely command- 
ing position, which inherently belongs to the 
military mind ? In the case of both navies and 
armies something depends on geographical 
conditions, and something on financial possi- 
bilities. The first represents, as it were, the 
minimum required for safety; the second the 
maximum burden which a state can endure 
without going into bankruptcy. 1 Our own 
country, we should say, requires fleets, so far 
as geographical conditions are concerned, for 
the protection of her shores, and, inasmuch as 
she is a scattered empire, we must have our 
warships in all the Seven Seas. France, in 
her turn, requires a navy which shall protect 
1 Bradford's War of Steel and Gold: Chap. IX. 



-AND AFTER 75 

her in the Mediterranean, and especially render 
access easy to her North African possessions. 
On the supposition that she is good friends with 
England, she does not require ships in the North 
Sea or in the English Channel, while, vice versa, 
England, so long as France is strong in the 
Mediterranean, need only keep quite small 
detachments at Gibraltar, Malta, and elsewhere. 
Russia must have a fleet for the Baltic, and also 
a fleet in the Black Sea. Beyond that her 
requirements assuredly do not go. Italy's 
activities are mainly in the Mediterranean. 
Under the supposition that she is conquered, 
Germany stands in some danger of losing her 
navy altogether. 



Protection of Commerce 

It is obvious, therefore, that if we confine 
ourselves purely to geographical conditions, 
and adhere to the principle that navies are 
required for the protection of coasts, we can at 
once reduce, within relatively small limits, the 
building of armoured ships. The reason why 
large navies have hitherto been necessary is 
because it has been assumed that they do not 
merely protect coasts, but protect lines of com- 
merce. We have been told, for instance, that 
inasmuch as we cannot feed our own popula- 



76 ARMAGEDDON 

tion, and our national food comes to us from 
Canada, America, the Argentine, Russia, and 
elsewhere, we must possess a very large amount 
of cruisers to safeguard the ships that are con- 
veying to us our daily bread. If we ask why 
our ships must not only protect our shores, but 
our merchandise— the latter being for the most 
part a commercial enterprise worked by indi- 
vidual companies — the answer turns on that 
much-discussed principle, the Right of Capture 
at Sea, which was debated at the last Hague 
Conference, and as a matter of fact stoutly 
defended both by Germany and ourselves. If 
we look at this doctrine — the supposed right that 
a power possesses to capture the merchandise 
of private individuals who belong to an enemy 
country in times of war — we shall perhaps feel 
some surprise that a principle which is not 
admitted in land warfare should still prevail 
at sea. According to the more benevolent 
notions of conducting a campaign suggested, 
and indeed enforced by Hague Conventions 
and such like, an army has no right to steal the 
food of a country which it has invaded. It 
must pay for what it takes. Well-conducted 
armies, as a matter of fact, behave in this 
fashion : the necessity of paying for what they 
take is very strictly enforced by responsible 
officers. Why, therefore, at sea an opposite 



—AND AFTER 77 

state of affairs should prevail is really not easy 
to understand. Most of the enemy's merchant 
ships which have been captured in the recent war 
belong to private individuals, or private com- 
panies. But they are taken, subject to the 
decision of Prize Courts, as part of the spoils of 
a successful maritime power. I am aware that 
the question is an exceedingly controversial 
one, and that Great Britain has hitherto been 
very firm, or, perhaps, I might be allowed to 
say, obstinate in upholding the law of capture 
at sea. But I also know that a great many 
competent lawyers and politicians do not be- 
lieve in the validity of such a principle, and 
would not be sorry to have it abolished. 1 At 
all events, it is clear enough that if it were 
abolished one of the main arguments for keeping 
up a strong navy would fall to the ground. 
We should then require no patrol of cruisers 
in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and in the 
Mediterranean. One thing at least is certain, 
that if we can ever arrive at a time when a real 
Concert of Europe prevails, one of the first 
things which it must take in hand is a thorough 
examination of the extent of defensive force 
which a nation requires as a minimum for the 
preservation of its independence and liberty. 

1 Notably Lord Loreburn, in his Capture at Sea 
(Methuen). 



78 ARMAGEDDON 



Trade in Armaments 

Certainly one crying evil exists which ought 
to be dealt with promptly and effectively in 
accordance with the dictates of common sense 
as well as common morality. I refer to the 
trade in armaments carried on by private 
companies, whose only interest it is to foment, 
or perhaps actually to produce, war scares in 
order that munitions of war may be greedily 
purchased. A notorious example is furnished 
by the great works at Essen owned by Krupp. 
In the same position are the great French 
works at Creusot, owned by Schneider, and 
those of our own English firms, Armstrongs, 
Vickers, John Brown, and Cammell Laird. These 
are all successful concerns, and the shareholders 
have reaped large profits. I believe that at 
Creusot the dividends have reached twenty 
per cent., and Armstrongs yield rarely less 
than ten per cent. It is necessary to speak 
very plainly about industries of this kind, be- 
cause, however we like to phrase it, they repre- 
sent the realisation of private profit through 
the instruments of death and slaughter. It 
would be bad enough if they remained purely 
private companies, but they really represent 
the most solid public organisations in the world. 
We know the intimate relations between Krupp 



—AND AFTER 79 

and the German Government, and doubtless 
also between Messrs. Schneider and the French 
Government. This sordid manufacture of the 
instruments of death constitutes a vast busi- 
ness, with all kinds of ramifications, and the 
main and deadly stigma on it is that it is bound 
to encourage and promote war. Let me quote 
some energetic sentences from Mr. H. G. Wells 
on this point : " Kings and Kaisers must 
cease to be commercial travellers of monstrous 
armament concerns. ... I do not need to 
argue what is manifest, what every German 
knows, what every intelligent educated man 
in the world knows. The Krupp concern and 
the tawdry Imperialism of Berlin are linked 
like thief and receiver ; the hands of the German 
princes are dirty with the trade. All over the 
world statecraft and royalty have been ap- 
proached and touched and tainted by these 
vast firms, but it is in Berlin that the corruption 
is centred, it is from Berlin that the intolerable 
pressure to arm and still to arm has come." 1 

1 There are one or two pamphlets on this subject which 
are worth consulting, especially The War Traders, by 
G. H. Perris (National Peace Council, St. Stephen's House, 
Westminster), and The War Trust Exposed, by J. F. 
Walton Newbold (the National Leader Press, Manchester). 
See also The War of Steel and Gold, by H. N. Brailsford, 
Chapter II, " Real Politics," p. 89. The sentences quoted 
from Mr. Wells come from The War that will end War 
(F. and C. Palmer), p. 39. 



80 ARMAGEDDON 

What is the obvious cure for this state of 
things? It stares us in the face. Govern- 
ments alone should be allowed to manufacture 
weapons. This ought not to be an industry 
left in private hands. If a nation, through its 
accredited representatives, thinks it is neces- 
sary to arm itself, it must keep in its own hands 
this lethal industry. Beyond the Government 
factories there clearly ought to be no making of 
weapons all over Europe and the world. 

Financial Interests 

It has already been remarked that the con- 
ditions which limit and control the size of 
armaments are partly geographical and partly 
financial, and that while the former represent 
the minimum, the latter stand for the maximum 
of protective force. I need say nothing further 
about the geographical conditions. Every one 
who studies a map can see for himself what is 
required by a country anxious to protect its 
shores or its boundaries. If we suppose that 
armaments are strictly limited to the needs of 
self-defence, and if we further assume that in 
the new Europe countries are not animated by 
the strongest dislikes against one another, but 
are prepared to live and let live (a tolerably 
large assumption, I am aware), we can readily 



—AND AFTER 81 

imagine a steady process of curtailment in the 
absolutely necessary armament. Further, if 
Great Britain gave up its doctrine of the Right 
of Capture at Sea (and if Great Britain sur- 
rendered it, we may be pretty sure that, after 
Germany has been made powerless, no other 
country would wish to retain it), the supposed 
necessity of protecting lines of commerce would 
disappear and a further reduction in cruisers 
would take place. I cannot imagine that either 
America or Japan would wish to revive the 
Right of Capture theory if we ourselves had 
given it up. And they are the most important 
maritime and commercial nations after our- 
selves. 1 

The financial conditions, however, deserve 
study because they lead straight to the very 
heart of the modern bellicose tendencies. In 
an obvious and superficial sense, financial con- 
ditions represent the maximum in the pro- 
vision of armaments, because ultimately it 
becomes a question of how much a nation can 
afford to spend without going bankrupt or 
being fatally hampered in its expenditure on 
necessary social reforms. This, however, is 
not perhaps the most significant point. Finan- 
cial conditions act much more subtly than this. 

1 As a matter of fact, the United States are opposed to 
the Capture at Sea principle. 

G 



82 ARMAGEDDON 

Why has it grown so imperative on states to 
have large armies or large navies, or both? 
Because— so we have been told over and over 
again— diplomacy cannot speak with effect 
unless it is backed by power. And what are 
the main occasions on which diplomacy has to 
speak effectively? We should be inclined to 
answer off-hand that it must possess this 
stentorian power when there is any question 
about national honour — when the country for 
whom it speaks is insulted or bullied, or de- 
frauded of its just rights; when treaties are 
torn up and disregarded; when its plighted 
word has been given and another nation acts 
as though no such pledge had been made ; when 
its territory is menaced with invasion and so 
forth. 



Protection of Financiers 

But these justifiable occasions do not ex- 
haust the whole field. Sometimes diplomacy 
is brought to bear on much more doubtful 
issues. It is used to support the concession- 
hunter, and to coerce a relatively powerless 
nation to grant concessions. It backs up a 
bank which has financed a company to build 
railroads or develop the internal resources of 
a country; or to exploit mines or oil-fields, 



—AND AFTER 83 

or to do those thousand-and-one things which 
constitute what is called " peaceful penetra- 
tion." Think of the recent dealings with 
Turkey, x and the international rivalry, always 
suspicious and inflammatory, which has practic- 
ally divided up her Asiatic dominions between 
European States — so that Armenia is to belong 
to Russia, Syria to France, Arabia to Great 
Britain, and Anatolia and I know not what 
besides to Germany ! Think of the competi- 
tion for the carrying out of railways in Asia 
Minor and the constant friction as to which 
power has obtained, by fair means or foul, the 
greatest influence ! Or let us remember the 
recent disputes as to the proper floating of a 
loan to China and the bickering about the Five- 
Power Group and the determination on the 
part of the last named that no one else should 
share the spoil ! Or shall we transfer our 
attention to Mexico, where the severe struggle 
between the two rival Oil Companies—the 
Cowdray group and the American group- 
threw into the shade the quarrel between 
Huerta and Carranza? These are only a few 
instances taken at random to illustrate the 
dealings of modern finance. Relatively small 
harm would be done if financiers were allowed 
to fight out their own quarrels. Unfortunately, 
1 Turkey has now thrown in her lot with Germany 

G2 



84 ARMAGEDDON 

however, diplomacy is brought in to support 
this side or that : and ambassadors have to 
speak in severe terms if a Chinese mandarin 
does not favour our so-called " nationals," or 
if corrupt Turkish officials are not sufficiently 
squeezable to suit our " patriotic " purposes. 
Our armaments are big not merely to protect 
the nation's honour, but to provide large 
dividends for speculative concerns held in 
private hands. 



Investing Money Abroad 

The truth is, of course, that the honourable 
name of commerce is now used to cover very 
different kinds of enterprise. We used to 
export goods; now we export cash. Wealthy 
men, not being content with the sound, but 
not magnificent interest on home securities, 
take their money abroad and invest in ex- 
tremely remunerative — though of course specu- 
lative^ — businesses in South Africa, or South 
America, concerned with rubber, petroleum, or 
whatnot. Often they subscribe to a foreign 
loan — in itself a perfectly legitimate and harm- 
less operation, but not harmless or legitimate 
if one of the conditions of the loan is that the 
country to which it is lent should purchase its 
artillery from Essen or Creusot, or its battle- 



—AND AFTER 85 

ships from our yards. For that is precisely 
one of the ways in which the traffic in munitions 
of war goes on increasing and itself helps to 
bring about a conflagration. Financial enter- 
prise is, of course, the life-blood of modern 
states. But why should our army and navy 
be brought in to protect financiers ? Let them 
take their own risks, like every other man who 
pursues a hazardous path for his own private 
gain. Private investment in foreign securities 
does not increase the volume of a nation's com- 
merce. The individual may make a colossal 
fortune, but the nation pays much too dearly 
for the enrichment of financiers if it allows 
itself to be dragged into war on account of their 
" beaux yeux" 

Ideal Aims 

It is time to gather together in a summary 
fashion some of the considerations which have 
been presented to us in the course of our 
inquiry. We have gone to war partly for 
direct, partly for indirect objects. The direct 
objects are the protection of small nationalities, 
the destruction of a particularly offensive kind 
of militarism in Germany, the securing of 
respect for treaties, and the preservation of 
our own and European liberty. But there are 



86 ARMAGEDDON 

also indirect objects at which we have to aim, 
and it is here, of course, that the speculative 
character of our inquiry is most clearly re- 
vealed. Apart from the preservation of the 
smaller nationalities, Mr. Asquith has himself 
told us that we should aim at the organisation 
of a Public Will of Europe, a sort of Collective 
Conscience which should act as a corrective 
of national defects and as a support of inter- 
national morality. Nothing could well be 
more speculative or vague than this, and we 
have already seen the kind of difficulties which 
surround the conception, especially the conflict 
between a collective European constraint and 
an eager and energetic patriotism. We must 
not, however, be deterred by the nebulous 
character of some of the ideals which are 
floating through our minds. Ideals are always 
nebulous, and always resisted by the narrow 
sort of practical men who suggest that we are 
metaphysical dreamers unaware of the stern 
facts of life. Nevertheless, the actual progress 
of the world depends on the visions of idealists, 
and when the time comes for the reconstitution 
of Europe on a new basis we must already have 
imaginatively thought out some of the ends 
towards which we are striving. We must also 
be careful not to narrow our conceptions to the 
level of immediate needs— that is not the right 



—AND AFTER 87 

way of any reform. Our conceptions must be 
as large and as wide and as philanthropical 
as imagination can make them; otherwise 
Europe will miss one of the greatest oppor- 
tunities that it has ever had to deal with, and 
we shall incur the bitterest of all disappoint- 
ments—not to be awake when the dawn 
appears. 

Greatness of States 

What, then, are some of those nebulous 
visions which come before the minds of eager 
idealists? We have got to envisage for our- 
selves a new idea of what constitutes greatness 
in a state. Hitherto we have measured 
national greatness by military strength, be- 
cause most of the European nations have 
attained their present position through success- 
ful war. So long as we cherish a notion like 
this, so long shall we be under the heel of a 
grinding militarism. We have set out as 
crusaders to destroy Prussian militarism, and 
in pursuit of this quest we have invoked, as a 
matter of necessity, the aid of our militarists. 
But when their work is done, all peoples who 
value freedom and independence will refuse to 
be under the heel of any military party. To be 
great is not, necessarily, to be strong for war. 



88 ARMAGEDDON 

There are other qualities which ought to enter 
into the definition, a high standard of civilisation 
and culture — not culture in the Prussian sense, 
but that which we understand by the term — 
the great development and extension of know- 
ledge, room for the discoveries of science, quick 
susceptibility in the domain of art, the organisa- 
tion of literature — all these things are part and 
parcel of greatness, as we want to understand 
it in the future. It is precisely these things 
that militarism, as such, cares nothing for. 
Therefore, if we are out for war against mili- 
tarism, the whole end and object of our en- 
deavour must be by means of war to make war 
impossible. Hence it follows, as a matter of 
course, that the new Europe must take very 
serious and energetic steps to diminish military 
establishments and to limit the size of arma- 
ments. If once the new masters of Europe 
understand the immense importance of redu- 
cing their military equipment, they have it in 
their power to relieve nations of one of the 
greatest burdens which have ever checked the 
social and economic development of the world. 
Suggestions have already been made as to the 
reduction of armaments, and, although such 
schemes as have been set forward are, in the 
truest sense, speculative, it does not follow 
that they, or something like them, cannot 



-AND AFTER 89 

hereafter be realised. Nor yet in our conception 
of greatness must we include another false 
idea of the past. If a nation is not necessarily 
great because it is strong for war, neither is it 
necessarily great because it contains a number 
of cosmopolitan financiers trying to exploit 
for their own purposes various undeveloped 
tracts of the world's surface. These financiers 
are certainly not patriots because, amongst 
other things, they take particular care to invest 
in foreign securities, the interest of home 
investments not being sufficient for their 
financial greed. It will not be the least of the 
many benefits which may accrue to us after 
the end of this disastrous war if a vulgar 
and crude materialism, based on the notion 
of wealth, is dethroned from its present 
sovereignty over men's minds. The more we 
study the courses of this world's history, the 
more certainly do we discover that a love of 
money is the root of most of the evils which 
beset humanity. 

Apostles of the New Era 

As we survey the possible reforms which 
are to set up a new and better Europe on the 
ruin of the old, we naturally ask ourselves with 
some disquietude : Who are the personalities, 



90 ARMAGEDDON 

and what are the forces required for so 
tremendous a change? Who are sufficient for 
these things ? Are kings likely to be saviours 
of society? Past experience hardly favours 
this suggestion. Will soldiers and great 
generals help us? Here, again, we may be 
pardoned for a very natural suspicion. Every 
one knows that a benevolent despotism has 
much to recommend it. But, unfortunately, 
the benevolent are not usually despotic, nor 
are despots as a rule benevolent. Can diplo- 
matists help us ? Not so far as they continue 
to mumble the watchwords of their ancient 
mystery : they will have to learn a new set of 
formulae, or more likely, perhaps, they will 
find that ordinary people, who have seen to 
what a pass diplomacy has brought us, may 
work out for themselves some better system. 
Clearly the tasks of the future will depend 
on the co-operation of intelligent, far-sighted 
philanthropic reformers in the various states 
of the world, who will recognise that at critical 
periods of the world's history they must set to 
work with a new ardour to think out problems 
from the very beginning. We want fresh and 
intelligent minds, specially of the younger 
idealists, keen, ardent, and energetic souls, 
touched with the sacred fire, erecting the fabric 
of humanity on a novel basis. Democracy 



—AND AFTER 91 

will have a great deal to do in the new Europe. 
It, too, had better refurbish its old watchwords. 
It has got to set itself patiently to the business 
of preventing future wars by the extension of 
its sympathies and its clear discernment of all 
that imperils its future development and pro- 
gress. Above all, it has got to solve that most 
difficult problem of creating a Public Will and 
a Common Conscience in Europe, a conscience 
sensitive to the demands of a higher ethics, 
and a will to enforce its decrees against obstruc- 
tives and recalcitrants. We do not see our 
way clear as yet, it is true. But we have a dim 
idea of the far-seen peaks towards which we 
must lift up our eyes. It is the greatest enter- 
prise which humanity has ever been called 
upon to face, and, however difficult, it is also 
the most splendid. 



Printed in Great Britain by 

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 

brunswick st., stamford st., s.k., 

and bungay, suffolk. 



LBAp'15 



THE PRUSSIAN HATH SAI 
IN HIS HEART- 

BY 

CECIL CHESTERTON. 

With a coloured wrapper by AUDLEY GUNSTO 
Crown 8vo. 2/- net. 

A vivid story of Prussian militaris 
and the evils and suffering to whi 
it has given birth. 



THE FRENCH 

v i AND 

THE EN0LI5! 



by" 



si/r< 



LAURENCE JERROLD. 

A masterly study of the relations of the t 
parties to the Entente Cordiale. 

New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 2/6 net. 



London: CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: j^y 2001 

PreservationTechnologie* 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATIOI 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 



